


Together

by mille_libri



Category: iZombie (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2019-06-06 11:00:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 43,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15193328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mille_libri/pseuds/mille_libri
Summary: "I can't marry you, Major. Not now. Not ever." It was more than a punch to the gut. It was a gunshot, straight to the heart. Major and Liv's path after the boat party.





	1. I'd Be Lost If I Lost You

The sun woke Major as it streamed through the windows above his head. He squinted in the brightness, sitting up with a groan, finding the game controller still in his hand. He’d fallen asleep on the couch in the middle of a marathon session, apparently. The TV screen was black, but he assumed his character had died when he’d fallen asleep, and his last save had been … sometime after midnight. This was why he needed Liv in the house, to keep him on the straight and narrow, he thought, putting the controller down and reaching for the remote. He switched from the game screen to live TV and was about to turn the TV off entirely when the live news feed on the screen caught his attention.

“Boat Party Nightmare” said the loud red banner across the bottom of the screen. Major leaned forward, his heart thudding in his chest in sudden alarm. It couldn’t be the boat party Liv had gone to, could it? Without taking his eyes off the screen, which was showing increasingly violent images taken from someone’s phone, Major reached for his own. No messages. Nothing.

The camera panned across the lake shore, across … bodies. Bodies under yellow tarps.

Liv! Automatically he hit the speed dial, waiting to hear her pick up, to make some stupid joke about sinking or swimming, anything to wake himself up from this nightmare where literally the worst thing he could ever have imagined might be true.

Voice mail. 

He tried again. Voice mail again. “Come on, Liv, pick up,” he whispered under his breath the third time, as though she could hear him.

Next he tried Peyton, who was watching the footage on the news with the same horrified fascination that had Major’s eyes glued to the screen, but she hadn’t been able to reach Liv either. “Come over, Major. Whatever—“ Her voice broke, and she cleared her throat and tried again. “Whatever we find out, we might as well be together. Oh, Major, what am I going to do without her?” She was out and out crying now.

“You won’t have to find out. Neither will I,” he said, and wished he believed it. “I’ll be there soon.”

It was nowhere near as soon as he’d wanted. He had trouble tearing himself away from the TV, hoping against hope he'd catch a glimpse of her, and then he had to call in to work and get someone to cover his afternoon shift, and then he had to take a shower to hide the tears he could no longer hold back. Who he was hiding them from in the shower spray, he didn’t know. Himself, maybe.

Peyton was waiting for him at the door of the apartment. She threw it open almost before he had a chance to knock. “What took you so long?” she asked in a loud whisper.

Major blinked, surprised by the change in her. Peyton was concerned, upset, but not gutted. Not about to dissolve in grief. Did that mean— “What happened?” he asked her.

Still in the whisper, Peyton said, “She’s here. I was just about to call you.”

“Liv’s here? Liv’s—“ But he couldn’t say “alive”, couldn’t admit he had been so close to believing he had lost her. 

Peyton nodded, but there was something strange in her face. Well, of course Liv would be acting unusually, Major thought. She had been through a traumatic experience. Reaching out, he squeezed Peyton’s shoulder reassuringly, and then went to Liv’s door, knocking softly. “Liv. It’s me.”

“Major?” Liv had been crying; he could hear it in her voice. Of course she had.

“Can I come in?”

There was silence in response, and then the door opened. She was across the room, her back turned to him, her arms crossed protectively, by the time he had opened it. There was a towel wound around her hair, as if she had just gotten out of the shower. Major shut the door behind him and leaned against it, all his training telling him to give her the space she so obviously needed, even though his heart was telling him to run to her, to hold her and reassure himself she was really there. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”

“Can I— Liv, I was terrified. I thought …”

“I thought so, too.” She gave a watery chuckle. “I really thought so. But apparently not.”

They both stood in silence for what seemed like ages to Major, before Liv gave a little cry, almost a moan of pain, and turned around, running to him, putting her arms around him and holding on as though she'd thought she'd never be able to again. 

Major held her close, content just to have her here in his arms. But eventually the closeness turned to need, and he tilted her face up to him, seeking her mouth with his own.

Liv pulled away as though his kiss burned her. “Don’t!”

“I’m sorry. I really am. I should have known better, after what you went through. Are you—are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?”

“No. You have to leave, Major. Please.”

“I—“

“Now.”

“Okay. I’ll call you later?” But of course, her phone was probably at the bottom of a lake.

“I’ll … I’ll come over. Once I’ve had a chance to—once I’ve made some sense of everything. Okay?”

“Okay.” He reached out without thinking to touch her cheek, and she flinched. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” There were tears in her eyes again, and as he closed her door he heard her start to cry, keening sobs like her heart was breaking.

“What is going on with her?” Peyton asked, coming toward him from the kitchen.

“She went through a lot. We just have to be patient until she’s ready to talk about it.”

“I just … I hate that I can’t do anything to help.”

“I know. Me, too. But Liv’s strong; she’ll come out of it.”

“I hope you’re right.”

He had trouble settling in to his day, constantly checking his phone to see if Liv had called, unable to focus on any project or activity in case she showed up. By nightfall he had scrubbed his kitchen cabinets from top to bottom, reorganized his bookshelves, changed the batteries in all the smoke detectors, and had been reduced to walking through the house flicking the lights off and on to determine whether any light bulbs needed to be changed.

Even though he had been listening for her all day, it still startled him when the doorbell rang. Of course it did, he realized, hurrying to open it. Liv had a key. She had never rung the bell before. Maybe she had lost the key?

But he could tell, looking at her there on the other side of the door, that she had lost more than a key. Something was off about her, and it was more than the unfamiliar black stocking cap that she wore over her hair. Liv’s eyes were empty as she looked up at him, seeing through him … or not seeing him at all, still trapped in a mental image of nightmare.

“Liv,” he said gently, reaching for her hand, but she pulled it back.

“Major, I— I came here to say— There’s … no easy way to—“ Her voice rasped over the words as though they were physically painful. Reaching down, she fumbled with her left hand, and then abruptly, unbelievably, she was holding out the winking piece of gold and gemstone that he had placed on her finger with so much joy. “I can’t marry you, Major. Not now. Not ever.”

It was more than a punch to the gut. It was a gunshot, straight to the heart. Or, at least, what Major imagined a gunshot must feel like. Only the knowledge that she had just been through a terrible trauma and couldn’t possibly mean what she’d said kept him standing upright. “Liv, don’t do this. Take some time. Think—“ His voice echoed even in his own ears, like it was coming from a long way away.

“I don’t need time.” She shook her head. “The last thing I need is time. If I could— If I thought— Just … forget me, Major, please. I can’t—“ She placed the ring in his palm, closing his fingers over it, and turned to go.

With his free hand, he reached for her, managing to tug the stocking cap off her head. Her hair was bleached white. “Your hair—“ he said, as if that mattered right now.

With a look of terror, she snatched the stocking cap from him, tugged it back down over her head, and was lost in the darkness before he could manage another coherent thought.


	2. No Reasons Why

It took Major over a week before he could catch Liv. Despite a bewildered and increasingly worried Peyton’s best efforts, she couldn’t keep Liv home long enough for Major to get there, and Liv never returned any of his calls or texts or emails. 

Finally he was reduced to hovering outside her building wearing a jacket he had borrowed from one of the kids at the shelter, a shiny over-sized Indianapolis Colts jacket that was as un-Major as he could possibly get. It worked, eventually—he caught Liv coming out just before midnight, and put himself in front of her before she had time to run.

“Please, Major, I’ll be late for work.”

He still knew the hours of her internship by heart—she shouldn’t have been needed for another six hours. He said as much, and Liv shook her head.

“I’m working in the morgue now. Assistant Medical Examiner. I … dropped out of the internship.”

The news sent Major reeling. He could understand her pushing him aside after the trauma she’d been through, but she had dreamed of being a surgeon for so long. How could she have given it up?

“Really, I have to go.”

She started to push past him, but he stopped her. He couldn’t let things go on like this. “Liv. Let me help you.”

“You can’t.” The words were so soft he could barely hear them.

“I can. You know I can. I’m trained in this kind of thing—and I love you. That has to count for something.”

Liv looked up at him, stricken. “I’m sorry. I wish I could. But I have to go.”

“Then meet me later. We can have coffee. Please, Liv! You owe me … something.”

She swallowed hard. “All right. The shop around the corner, with the great pastries.” Her face twisted as if the thought of the pastries made her ill. “I get off at eight.”

“All right.”

This time he let her go, and stood there in the uncomfortable borrowed jacket watching her go, torn between grief at the loss of everything she had been and fear that he might not be able to help her come back from it. Her eyes had been so empty—like she was still at that boat party.

She met him at the coffee shop as scheduled, which was a relief. Major had been afraid she wouldn’t show. Liv curled her hands around a mug and stared down into the coffee with that terrifying blankness still in her eyes. She drank it mechanically, with no jokes about how terrible it was or indication that she even knew what she was drinking.

“Liv. You can’t go on like this.”

Her eyes filled with tears. “You don’t know what I would give to be able to tell you—to talk to you—“

“You can. You can tell me anything. Tell me why you gave up the internship.”

“I had to. I just couldn’t … I couldn’t do it anymore.”

“Just like you couldn’t marry me anymore. Liv, what the hell happened on that boat?”

She shook her head mutely, her eyes huge and dark in her pale face. Too pale. According to Peyton, she wasn’t eating, she was barely sleeping …

“Then … why the morgue? Please, you have to tell me something.”

“It’s quiet. And there are no—people.” 

Major blinked and sat back. Was that what it was? She was afraid to be around people because of the boat party, because she couldn’t trust them not to go crazy? Surely she knew he would never be like that. Huh. Or maybe she didn’t. If it had been bad enough, maybe no one felt safe to her anymore. He leaned across the table again, meeting her eyes. “Liv, I promise, I swear, I’m not going to push you. What you’ve been through—you’re traumatized, I can see that, and you need time to recover. I’ll do whatever I can to give you that time, to make sure Peyton does, too. And your mom.” He smiled briefly, hoping to spark some of their mutual eye-rolling at her mother’s over-involvement in her life, but there was nothing. Just more pain, Liv’s eyes dropping again to her coffee. “All I ask is that you give me some hope, some … just … will you take this back? Please?” He took the ring out of his pocket, where he had carried it ever since she’d given it back. “Will you wear this as a symbol to both of us that some day we can be together again?”

Her face twisted as she looked at it as if she was about to cry, one hand lifting, reaching for it. Then she snatched the hand back, putting it in her lap, and shook her head. “I can’t.”

Clenching his jaw against the his own tears, his throat swollen and aching with them, he took the ring back, dropping it in his pocket. “Are you sure?”

“I am. Trust me, if there was any—but … “ She shook her head again.

This silent ghost was so unlike his Liv, who chattered and talked through things and went through a thousand thoughts a minute, it made his skin crawl. “Will you at least see someone?”

“Someone?”

“A therapist.”

“Oh. Huh.” She blinked, as though she hadn’t considered the possibility. He wished he’d suggested it days ago, but he had been so thrown by her returning the ring, he couldn’t think straight.

“You’ll think about it?”

Liv frowned. “I … can’t.”

“You can’t do this alone, Liv. I know it feels like that, that you can’t trust anyone and you can’t rely on anyone, and you have to just get through this. I know that’s who you are, and I know that’s how a lot of people respond to a trauma like this, but … you’re not really making your best decisions right now, and …”

She interrupted him, her eyes blazing, her voice stronger than he had heard it since he’d sent her off to that damn party. “Yes, I am. Major, I can’t make you understand, I wish I could, but the choices I’ve made, the things I’ve done—they were the only things possible. You have to trust me that I know what I’m doing, or I wouldn’t be doing it.” Liv leaned across the table. “Have you ever known me not to have a plan?”

He thought of the color-coded notebooks she kept, planning out the details of her schedule and her long-term plans and their wedding and future house projects. He had to admit that he never had known her not to have a plan. “And … leaving me is part of your plan now?” Major tried to keep his voice from cracking, but he couldn’t.

“It is. I’m sorry, more sorry than I can ever tell you.”

“Then tell me this—Liv, do you still love me?” She had to answer him. He couldn’t take it if she didn’t.

“It won’t change anything.”

“I have to know.”

She looked at him closely, then nodded. “I do.”

God, he wanted to shake her. If she loved him, why wouldn’t she let him help her? But she wouldn’t, that much was clear. Major felt their future hanging in the balance—he could accept that she needed to do things her way and wait, as patiently as he could, for her to come to her senses again, or he could totally lose his cool here in this cheap coffee shop and blow any chance of ever having her back in his arms again. When he put it that way, there was really no choice at all. He loved her, he needed her, he wasn’t giving up this easily. “All right. We’ll … do it your way. Just … don’t shut me out, okay? I’m here for you, you know that.”

Liv nodded. “I know.” She looked down at her coffee again, the cup still half full. “I have to go.”

“Yeah.” He’d expected as much. This was a longer conversation than anyone had gotten out of her since the boat party, as far as he could tell.

She stood up, then paused by the edge of the table. “I’ll … I’ll take care of calling and—canceling everything. You don’t have to do anything.”

“Thanks.” He hadn’t wanted to ask—in part not to burden her when she was so clearly hanging on by a thread and in part because if they canceled the church and the caterer and the florist and everything else it would all be real and Major had wanted to hold on to the dream just that much longer, to tell himself that she couldn’t really be doing this. But he hadn’t looked forward to making those calls, either.

“Bye.” It was little more than a whisper, and then she was gone. Major was left here with these cups of terrible coffee at an empty table where Liv used to be, and he couldn’t hold back the tears any longer.


	3. Come On and Give Me a Chance

Reaching for a clean shirt, Major kicked the box again. He scowled down at it. Not that it was the box’s fault that he’d left it on the floor of his closet where he would trip over it regularly. No, that was all him, and his inability to decide whether he wanted to keep it all to pretend a little bit longer that Liv might come back some day or whether he wanted to take it to her to give himself an excuse to see her and hope seeing him reminded her what a mistake it had been to break up with him. 

Either way, though, he really couldn’t leave it there any longer—the constant kicking was making a dent in the box. And, after all, there was Corinne. Who wasn’t Liv, but she was nice, and she wasn’t constantly upset by his presence, and she seemed … normal. Like maybe he could have a normal life even if his fiance had left him to deal with her trauma.

Yeah. It was enough. He picked up the box and set it in front of his bedroom door so that he couldn’t accidentally—or not so accidentally—forget it when he left.

Later, he waited in front of their door, the box in his arms, bracing himself for Peyton to open the door, trying to prepare for Liv to open the door. He could be her friend, right? After all this time, he was used to not being her partner and he could be her friend. At least, so he told himself, until Liv opened the door in her shorts and a hoodie hastily pulled on over a tank top.

In order to keep his eyes off her, keep from remembering the time when he had the right to peel those off her and lock the door behind them and … he dropped his gaze to the box and immediately started babbling. “I was gonna rename this ‘Major’s excuse to come over’, but … I’m tryin’ to maintain an air of mystery.” As babbles went, that was a little too close to the truth. When Liv didn’t respond, he walked into the room. “No, but seriously, I figured after six months, you were kind of really missing your tiny face sander thing, and that magnifying mirror that makes your pores look like manholes.” No, that wasn’t passive aggressive at all. Shut up, Major. He could have slapped himself for letting his mouth run off with itself like that. “Thanks for leaving that behind, by the way.” He grinned at her over his shoulder, hoping she couldn’t tell how nervous he was. He hated being nervous around Liv. They never had been nervous with each other. From the first moment, they’d just—gotten one another, conversation and quips flowing so easily between them. He missed that so much. 

He put the box down on the dining table, glad and sorry to be rid of it.

“You didn’t need to do this,” Liv said when he finally took a breath.

God, she was blunt. She’d always been blunt, but since the boat party she really seemed to be missing her filter. And sometimes she said the weirdest things, like she wasn’t even Liv anymore, and then she’d be right back to brooding and running from him, and everyone, again. 

“No, it’s mostly just hair products, lingerie …” Really, Major? Lingerie? Shut up! “But there’s some books,” he added hastily, to keep either one of them from thinking too much about the lingerie. “Oh. And this.” He pulled out the T-shirt, holding it up to his chest, hoping … what? That she would be so overcome by memories she’d throw herself into his arms? It said “I left my heart in San Francisco”, with the word “heart” replaced by the image of one. And he couldn’t help being a little snarky. “Which might explain some things.” Yeah, she wasn’t going to throw herself into his arms. Not today.

Liv just stared at him, no response. No smile, no frown, no ‘shut up, Major’, which he probably richly deserved, nothing. He hated seeing her like this. 

But he tried one more time, because here he was and here she was and he couldn’t not try one more time. “I’m thinkin’ maybe this calls for a road trip.” He gave her his best smile. She loved his lopsided smile, she’d told him so more times than he could count. But then, these days he wasn’t sure if she remembered what love felt like. Or any other emotion, for that matter.

Still nothing. He felt bad for trying, and mad at himself for feeling bad, and mad at her for making him feel bad, and—really awful that he hadn’t been able to help. All this time, all his training, all the love he felt for her, and he hadn’t been able to help her heal, even a little bit. Major folded the shirt again, and said apologetically, “I’m just—I’m just kiddin’.”

“I know.” Two hoarse, emotionless words. He was over here twisted into knots from everything he felt, and she had … nothing. 

They stared at each other until Major couldn’t take it any longer. “Yeah, well, I didn’t—I didn’t know what to do with this stuff, and it just felt weird to throw it out.”

Liv nodded.

“I mean … what if you had an emotional attachment to …” He reached into the box and pulled out the first thing he touched. “This textbook. On rare skin diseases.” 

“Well, thanks for bringing it by,” she said, as if he hadn’t spoken. So much for thinking she had any emotional attachments at all, he thought sourly. 

Peyton came in just then, complaining about her parking spot, and Major had never been so happy to see Liv’s best friend. He and Liv shared a look, a ghost of thousands of other looks between them when being interrupted by Peyton, whose timing had often been scarily apt. 

Dry cleaning slung over her shoulder, Peyton came toward them, frowning as she tried to parse the situation. “Should I not be here?”

“No, I, uh—I was just headin’ out,” Major said, wishing it wasn’t true, but glad it was. He gave Peyton a quick hug, and walked past Liv without a touch, which was harder to do than he would have thought possible. Before he left, though, he also had to deal with the other unpleasant task, the one he had been putting off for so long. He stopped to look down at her. “I, uh, I also have an entire closet full of engagement gifts, so let me know if you want anything.” Let me know if you want me, he meant, but she didn’t, and he couldn’t stand being told that any more. Hastily, he kept talking, hoping she had missed the subtext, angry that she definitely had missed the subtext. “Other than the panini press, which I’ve already used,” and what crappy paninis those had been, eating them thinking how much better they would have tasted if Liv had been there to make them with him, “and broken … and repurchased.”

“We’ll take a juicer,” Peyton said.

Liv glanced at her, if possible even paler than usual, and turned to Major ready to argue. 

But Major saw an attempt by Peyton to give him another excuse to come by, and he had to hope Peyton knew something he didn’t know. Or he had to hope there was something to know. Or he had to keep torturing himself because this was his life now. Whatever way you looked at it, Corinne or no Corinne, any excuse to come over to Liv’s was one he couldn’t pass up. “I’ll, uh, I’ll drop it by this weekend.”

He heard furious whispers behind him when he closed the doors, and was perversely glad that at least something had made Liv furious. He couldn’t help contrasting this pale, emotionless woman with the colorful, vibrant girl he loved. If there was any chance of getting that Liv back, any chance of getting back on track with her, then he had to try, didn’t he? Which wasn’t fair to Corinne. But then, Liv wasn’t coming back—the last six months had made that abundantly clear, and Corinne was his chance to start over. Which wasn’t fair to Liv or to Corinne. But nothing about this situation was fair to him, either, and he was fumbling through it as best he could.


	4. Hidden Well

Major looked up from his email as Ravi came into the kitchen. “All settled in?”

“All but the most important bit. Are we ready to tackle the beast?”

“Oh, yeah. Let’s get to it.”

They went into the living room, where Ravi’s massive TV leaned against the wall, ready to be mounted and hooked up. Between Ravi’s various electronics and his own, it was pretty much the gaming setup of Major’s dreams. He’d been skeptical when Liv first suggested that he invite her boss to move in, but the additional equipment was a total bonus, the work hours matched up pretty well, and Major even liked the guy. Plus, Ravi’s friendship with Liv had been good for her. She wasn’t her old self yet by any means, and she still acted weird on a regular basis, but she was starting to come back from that emotionless fog she’d lived in for so long, and even taking steps to improve her relationship with Major. Not as much as he’d hoped she would, but anything was better than nothing. Occasionally he wondered if that weird night when she'd showed up and sat in his lap and said she was going crazy not being close to him was really how she felt, but she was so careful the rest of the time to avoid anything that might even skirt the edge of romantic that he had to assume she must have been drunk at the time or he'd be the one going crazy.

Major thought about the scene with Corinne this morning uncomfortably. Of all the mornings for Liv to pick to show up and be friendly! But Liv had to have known that he’d move on eventually, if only as a way to force himself to get over her. And he couldn’t believe it was a coincidence that her suggestion that he let Ravi move in came right on top of her finding Corinne there wearing Major’s shirt and drinking out of Liv’s favorite morning coffee cup … just the way Liv should have been.

Or was it? Was this a subtle signal that Liv had moved on as well, and he and Corinne and she and Ravi could double couple it up on the reg? Major glanced over at Ravi, sizing him up, as they lifted the TV. Sure, he was tall. And smart. And good-looking. And had a killer accent. But surely Liv couldn’t—

“Ravi.”

“Right. Just a bit to the left there. That’s got it.”

“Huh? Oh, to the left. Yeah.” Major caught on in time to help Ravi maneuver the TV onto the mounting brackets. “So, you and Liv … Just friends?” Yeah, the segue wasn’t quite as smooth or as subtle as he had hoped.

Ravi tested the TV to make sure it was secure, then gingerly let go, holding his breath until he was sure it was securely mounted. Only then did he look at his new roommate. “Major, I think this will go a lot better if we put a moratorium on the Liv talk. I have no intention of carrying messages. Or tales, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

He hadn’t actually thought of that, but it was nice to have it off the table. “Well, that’s a relief, I guess. But … you and Liv aren’t … together … Right?”

“What, me and Liv? No! No. Nothing like that at all.”

Major peered at him suspiciously. “That was fast.”

“It’s also true. Look, Major, I like Liv. She’s been through a lot, and she’s trying to deal as best she can, and I want to help her through it as much as she’ll let me. But that’s all there is to it. And all there’s going to be.”

“Good,” Major said, pushing aside the stab of jealousy he felt that Liv was actually willing to let Ravi help her when she would never even talk to Major about … anything. “I’m glad she has someone she can trust.”

“She trusts you, Major. She’s just afraid,” Ravi said softly. “It’s … complicated. Give her time.”

“I have been.”

“Give her more.”

They looked at each other, a spark of hope lighting in Major’s heart at Ravi’s words. It was enough. For now. “What do you say we fire this thing up and give it a spin?”

“Prepare to have your world rocked.”

“Ready and willing.”

They finished attaching the cables, took their seats on the couch, picked up their controllers, and the epic bromance was on.


	5. Back to the Place You Are

Why he had gone looking for Liv before he left Holly’s wake, Major wasn’t sure. Except that she was Liv, and she was where he turned every time things didn’t make sense. Between Holly dying so suddenly and Jerome missing, it had been a hell of a week already, and he wanted to hold on to Liv and feel like things were going to be okay, if only for a moment. 

Only then he turned the corner into Holly’s den and found his worst nightmare in progress—Liv having a moment with one of Holly’s crazy friends that looked like quiet intimacy. The kind of moment Major had wanted for himself, just the two of them, talking quietly. He swallowed down the stab of hurt he felt as best he could as Liv looked up and saw him, her mind still on whatever she and the good-looking dark-haired guy had been talking about. 

“Oh. There you are,” he said lamely. “I’m gonna take off.”

To his surprise, Liv got to her feet, adjusting her purse over her shoulder. 

“I just wanted to say good-bye,” he told her, not wanting to interrupt. Well, of course he did want to interrupt, but he also wanted her to be happy, and if this was what it took, he was hardly in a position to complain that she was moving on. 

After a moment of awkward silence, Liv said, “I’ll walk you out.” She left the guy without a word, which pleased Major, but surprised him even more. He wondered what the guy thought—but he didn’t really care. As they headed out the door, Liv looked up at him, concern in her eyes. “You’re leaving awfully early.”

He forced a smile. “Yeah, I’m really bringin’ down this wake.” Major considered leaving it there, but he missed talking to her so much, he couldn’t help letting his troubles pour out, if only just a little. “I can’t stop thinking about Jerome. It’s been over a week, he stopped texting …” They were next to his car now, but Liv was looking at him like she understood, that really listening look she had always been so good at, and he didn’t want to give this up. It was the closest they had been in—far too long. And he was terrified for Jerome, in ways that he hadn’t been able to make anyone else understand. They all thought Jerome was just another street kid, taking off whenever he felt like it, but he wasn’t like that. He had been making real strides at Helton, he and Major had talked about his future, and he had been starting to feel like he really had one. He wouldn’t have left this way, not just taking off without a word. “I—I think something happened to him.”

Unlike everyone else he had said that to, Liv looked stricken at the thought. Without a word, she stepped forward and put her arms around Major, holding him close. He didn’t want to go in for the hug, didn’t want relax and let himself be comforted by her the way he had been since … the very beginning, because if once he closed his eyes and rested on her shoulder, how could he give her up again? But he needed this, needed her closeness and her understanding and her silent comfort. He let his eyes close, his hand stroking her back. She didn’t smell quite right anymore, something under the perfume and the shampoo different than he remembered, but she felt the same, and he loved her as much now as he had the night she decided to go to that damned boat party. 

Liv moved her hands, pressing his upper arms firmly, the comfort hug turning into her encouragement hug, and Major forced himself back to the present, little as he wanted to.

“He’ll turn up,” Liv said, as if she really believed it. 

Major nodded. He didn’t think it would happen—something in him was sure Jerome was dead, or if not dead, then on his way to it. But he appreciated Liv trying, and her certainty. He should have turned and left right then, but his big mouth ran off with him before he could. “I’m sorry if I … interrupted something back there,” he said. Because he wanted to know if he had, and because he wanted her to know he could be okay with it. Because he wanted her to know that her happiness was important to him, even if they couldn’t be together.

“What?” She looked genuinely confused, and he couldn’t help smiling inwardly. She hadn’t realized something had been going on, but it had. Major could tell. He was happy for her, but something in the sudden realization in her eyes, in the way she tripped over her next few words explaining that it was all about work because she had just figured out that it hadn’t been, not really, told him that the door to their relationship was finally closing for good, and he wasn’t ready. 

But he had to be ready. He had Corinne, after all, for all that she wasn’t Liv, and he needed Liv to know they could be friends even if they couldn’t be more. Because not being Liv’s husband was bad enough, but not being Liv’s friend was unthinkable. “It’s bound to happen someday,” he told her. And then he did turn to get into his car. Little as he wanted to drive away from her, if they were going to be friends he had to learn to take what he could get and be glad for it, and to stop clinging to thoughts of what could have been but was never going to be. This was better than it had been in a long time, and he was going to be grateful for that, and for Liv’s support, if it killed him.


	6. To Do It Right This Time Around

When he came to in the skate park, Major was pissed, embarrassed … and a in a lot of freaking pain. He limped back to his car, feeling blood running slowly down his cheeks from the cuts on his face. It itched like crazy, too, but he couldn’t keep reaching up to scratch. He thought he might have broken a finger. How was that possible? he thought, putting the car in drive and pulling out of the space, even though he had no clue where to go in this situation. That Candy-Man guy was big, yeah … but Major was a former football player. All-Conference, for crying out loud! He was a regular at the gym, and no slouch in the ring. And yet the Candy-Man had wiped the floor with him. Literally. He was going to have to come up with some kind of lie to tell Ravi—

No, he wasn’t. Ravi could help. He pulled a totally illegal Uie and headed for the morgue.

He was glad Liv wasn’t there when he arrived, sneaking in the back so no one else could see his bloodied face.

Ravi turned around from his computer. “Major? What the hell?”

“You should see the other guy? Actually, you really should.” Major slumped against one of the tables. “He looks a hell of a lot better than I do.”

“What happened?”

Major lay back on the table, closing his eyes and letting Ravi clean him up, not even concerned that usually people were dead when this happened to them. He told Ravi the whole story.

Eventually the worst of the injuries had been bandaged, and he’d been mostly washed off, but the facial lacerations remained. Ravi clucked his tongue. “This is not my forte.”

Once that would have mattered. Major had always taken pride in his looks. But not anymore. Who cared? “Go ahead. Whatever.”

“You’re sure?”

“Just … do it.”

“All right,” Ravi said doubtfully. Things clattered as he arranged them next to the table and Major held still … until Ravi actually began the stitching process, which was painful enough that holding still really wasn’t an option. 

“Ow!”

“You’re the one who asked me to do this.” Major twitched away from the needle. “Easy,” Ravi said. “You’re lucky you’re not dead. Although if you were, this would come much more naturally to me.” He did something fiendishly painful at Major’s hairline.

Major asked, “You know what you’re doing, right?” Ravi had said this wasn’t his forte, but Major had assumed he was just being modest. 

“I mean, theoretically … sure?” Ravi tugged at the thread. “Did you consider a trip to the ER?”

“I’m a social worker. My insurance covers, like, one Band-Aid a year.”

“Major?” It was Liv. Major had hoped to avoid her, not wanting to have to explain what had happened, but now, in the face of Ravi’s obvious discomfort with the stitching process, Major thought he might be pretty happy Liv was here. She dropped her purse and hurried toward him. “What the hell?”

“It’s nothing,” he said quickly.

Liv came around the table, looking over Ravi’s shoulder. “Those are Y incision stitches. They need to be closer together … unless you’re going for that Frankenstein look.”

Frankenstein? Major’s eyebrows flew up. What was Ravi doing to him?

“The man’s too good-looking. I’m giving him character,” Ravi explained airily.

“Should I just take over?”

Major blessed Liv’s superiority complex, the one that would never let someone else do something because she always knew she could do a better job. Annoying while cooking together, sure, but damned useful when someone else was making a mess of stitches on your face. 

Ravi must have agreed. He dropped the needle like it burned him. “Please, god, yes.”

Liv took over, her face scrunching up in concentration. “How did this happen?”

“He got into a fight,” Ravi said helpfully.

“I went looking for Jerome.”

“And found the Candy-Man.”

Major looked up at Liv. “Remember? The guy Jerome said was handing out Utopium, inviting kids back to his van?”

“He’s a real person, then? The Candy-Man?”

“He was wearing Jerome’s high-tops.” Major was angry all over again, just talking about it. The guy had known what happened to Jerome, and Major had utterly failed to get anything out of him at all.

“How did you know they were Jerome’s?” Liv asked. She tugged at the stitch, but somehow it didn’t hurt when she did it. “They were cool shoes, but they weren’t one of a kind.”

“They were Jerome’s.” The guy had as good as admitted it, after all. 

“So our friend here went full vigilante,” Ravi added. “Batman versus the Candy-Man. Point: Candy-Man.”

“And I assume that fight solved everything?” Liv asked. “You and the Candy-Man shook hands, and he led you right to Jerome.”

Her sarcasm aside, Major didn’t know what else he could have done. “He knows something, I know it,” he insisted.

“You’re a social worker, not a cop. You could have been killed.”

Major grinned up at her as best he could in his current position, warmed by her concern for him, by the sheer familiarity of Liv in doctor-mode, Liv in caring mode. For so long, it had seemed like she didn’t care about anything at all, and now here she was scolding him for getting too involved in his work, too emotionally over-committed, just the way she used to. “I was an All-Conference strong safety for the Washington Huskies, baby. A head-hunter.” His smile widened, the conversation a familiar one. Liv had never been impressed by his physical prowess or his posturing as a tough guy—it was one of the things he had always liked about her, that she saw him for everything he was, not just for his physique. “I’m a dangerous man.”

She rolled her eyes, just like she used to. “The Candy-Man is dangerous-er. Please, promise me that that’s the last time you’ll take matters into your own hands. There’s a reason—“

Raising his voice to reach Ravi, who had wandered away from the conversation, Major said, “Liv tell you about the guy she met at the wake the other night? Musician-type? If I hadn’t stumbled in and totally rocker-blocked this dude— Ow!” He couldn’t help chuckling through the pain, though. Nice to know he could still get Liv’s goat, even if he had to be okay with her seeing other guys to do it.

“Quite an imagination you have there,” she said, her voice chilly.

He caught her gaze, looking into her eyes, no longer joking. “Have some faith in me. All right? I’ve been girding myself for this day.” He had, too, for months. Sleeping with Corinne, he had had to face the idea that Liv would eventually do the same with someone else, and he had accepted this as the price for her friendship. He gave her his best smile, the one that always made her laugh, no matter how mad she was. “Come on. Who’s your buddy? I’m your buddy.”

She didn’t laugh, but she relented, at least a little.

“Eager to share the highs and lows of your life,” Major assured her. He always had been, of course, but things were different now, and if being her buddy was what he could get, then being her buddy was what he would take, and be glad for it. 

“Mm-hm.” Liv wasn’t convinced, he could tell, but she was getting there. What with the suturing and all, this might have been the most normal conversation they’d had in months. Major didn’t even mind when Ravi interrupted with news of a dead body. “Just a second. I don’t want it to pop,” Liv told him, tying off the stitch.

“It’s fine,” Major assured her. “Chicks dig scars.”

That got at least a half-smile, which was enough for today. He’d look forward to the day he could make her laugh again. But for now, this was enough. And he no longer felt quite so beaten, emotionally or physically. This was why he was lucky to have Liv, in whatever form he could.


	7. Wondering What in the World

Major was getting used to the throbbing pain in his face. The Candy-Man, the Hell’s Angels in the jail cell … next up, maybe the assistant football coach from his high school team would show up. That guy had had quite the temper. But it didn’t matter anyway. Nothing had seemed entirely real to him since he’d seen those brains in the Candy-Man’s car. What the hell would a guy be doing with human brains? Major couldn’t figure it out. A delicacy for rich people? Seriously, who was so rich they had to eat human brains?

He was so busy researching it, earbuds in, music blasting, that he didn’t hear Corinne ringing the doorbell until the door closed behind her. He pulled out the earbuds, resenting the distraction and trying not to. It wasn’t Corinne’s fault that he seemed to have fallen into some weird modern noir movie.

From the thud of her shoes on the floor as she crossed the room, he gathered she was mad. 

“So, you missed our lunch date.”

They’d had a lunch date? “Things have been … kinda crazy,” he muttered. Did she know he’d been in jail? He couldn’t remember. It didn’t seem to matter. He tried to remember the Major who was a good boyfriend. “But, uh … I’ll make it up to you. Okay?”

Corinne moved closer, gasping as she saw his face. “Oh, my god. Major, what happened to your face?”

If she had been Liv, he could have told her. But sitting here, looking at Corinne, he wondered if he had ever really known her. Major shook his head. “It’s a long story.” She frowned, and he decided to take a stab at the explanation. “I—I broke into a guy’s car. Then the cops put me in a cell with these bikers, and … whatever. You know, it doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter!” She took a step towards him, and her attention was caught by the giant image of a human brain on his computer screen. “Why are you looking at pictures of brains?”

Major opened his mouth to answer, not sure what he could say that would explain the situation without making him sound crazy, but she spoke again before he could come up with anything.

“You know what, don’t even answer that. This is so not what I signed up for.” She headed for the door.

He got to his feet, following her. “Look, I know things—“

Corinne stopped, whirling to face him. “You keep getting into fights. You just got arrested. You’re in a running battle with someone known as the Candy-Man. What the hell? You were the dream combination of super-hot but funny, and … now you’re like some whackjob who doesn’t shower enough.”

Did she not get it? This was serious. People’s lives were at stake. “If you’d just give me a second to explain …”

“You should get some help.”

She was right, he probably should get someone to help him with this, but who could he tell that he’d found human brains in a cooler in the car of the man who had killed Jerome? And whatever Ravi and Clive said, Major knew it had been the Candy-Man. He stood watching as Corinne walked out of his life, and felt nothing but a sense of relief that he didn’t have to try to be normal anymore.

On her way out, she nearly ran into Ravi, who stared after her, then turned to Major. “I take it game night’s off?”

Major gave that some thought. He should take a break from worrying about this brain thing to go kill some virtual zombies.

Zombies. Brains. No way. But … brains. He frowned.

“Major?”

“Yeah, let’s, uh … let’s skip game night.” He turned back to the computer, entering some new search terms.

When the knock came at the door later that night, he almost didn’t answer it. Whoever it was, he didn’t want to talk to them. But he heard Liv’s voice through the glass, and thought better of it. If he could talk to anyone, explain what was going on with him to anyone … it was Liv. She was being bright and falsely chipper, so he could tell Ravi had told her about Corinne. But when the door opened and she saw his face, it was clear that Ravi had not told her about the biker gang beat-down, which had really added some nice colors on top of the half-healed beat-down from the Candy-Man.

“Oh, Major. Who did this to you?”

“I can’t talk about Fight Club.” He winced openly, ignoring the pain in his face, as if he had truly slipped up by mentioning it. “Crap!”

Liv didn’t fall for his comedy, and he couldn’t really blame her. He wasn’t finding much about his life funny at the moment, either. “I want to know what happened,” she demanded, stepping inside.

“Would you believe shark attack?”

She ignored him, touching the side of his face gently with her small, cool hand. Major walked away, not wanting the sympathy or the concern today.

“Did you go to the skate park again?”

“Rough night in jail,” he said breezily. “Turns out the police take umbrage when you accuse them of negligence.”

“You were in jail? Why didn’t you—” She caught herself even before Major could give her a pointed look. “You did call me. You called me from jail and I didn’t answer.”

“It’s fine. Really. I’m … glad you’re here now.” He really was. Even after everything, the only person he wanted to see every day was still her, the only person he wanted to talk to right now while the world was falling down around his ears was, still and always, her. 

Liv sank into a chair, still mentally beating herself up, and picked up the paper lying there. “You made it on the police blotter?”

He hadn’t wanted to tell her, or anyone, the rest of it, the worst of it, but now he found he did want to tell her, and that he could tell her without breaking into tears, which was a step up from the rest of the day. “One of the kids at Helton Shelter brought that into a group session this morning. Unfortunately, my bosses weren’t nearly as impressed with my street cred as this kid was, so … If you hear of anyone looking for a youth counselor with a rap sheet …”

“They fired you. Major, I’m so sorry.”

There had been a time when he could have let her see how devastated he was, but … this was no longer that time. He looked away from her shocked and worried face, forcing the “life’s a beach” smile he kept for these occasions. “Look at me.” He knew what his face looked like, what a bad example he was setting for the kids. “I didn’t give ‘em much choice.”

Liv was searching for words, but he didn’t want platitudes. Having come this far, having told her the worst, he was ready to tell her the crazy part, too. He needed to tell her.

Reaching for her hand, he said, “I need to talk to you about something. I think you’re the only one who might listen to me.” He’d considered confiding in Ravi, but he hadn’t wanted Ravi to go all … medical conspiracy theorist on him. Maybe if they’d known each other longer, but—it had always been Liv he talked to, right from the start.

“Of course.”

“Those people in the woods didn’t kill Jerome and Eddie. All right? It was a drug dealer named Julian Dupont, the guy the kids call the Candy-Man.” 

Liv broke in before he could finish. “They found their remains at the house.”

“I’m telling you, it wasn’t them. All right? This Dupont guy was wearing Jerome’s shoes. He practically admitted to killing him. The police, they’re covering this up, now, don’t ask me why—“ She was looking away, not believing him, and he could hear his own voice rising, the growing hysteria, and he tried to rein it in, bring the tone back down so she would take him seriously.

“The DNA was verified.”

“Just … listen. Please. All right? I saw something in the Candy-Man’s car, and it’s gonna sound crazy, all right, but I know what I saw.”

“Okay.” There were years of trust in her face and her voice as she watched him, waiting for the crazy.

“There was an ice chest in the passenger seat. It had a brain inside. A human brain. I’m sure of it.” He looked closely at her face, waiting for the disbelief. She seemed shocked, as if she were processing, but he couldn’t tell if she was shocked about the brains he’d found, or about the ones in his head that were clearly slowly turning to mush.

“Brains, huh?” she said at last, her voice carefully casual.

“You think I’m crazy.”

“No!” She got to her feet, looking past him with that thousand-yard Liv figuring things out stare. “It’s just that if the man worked for a butcher shop, like he told the police, then, it seems logical the brains came from an animal.”

“No. I’ve been looking at pictures of human and cow brains for hours, and yes, I know how crazy that sounds, but Liv, a cow’s brain is baseball sized. That’s not what this was.” God, it was a relief to be able to talk this through and be sure of what he was saying. She was looking at him in distress, and he needed her to be with him on this. Maybe no one else would be, but she had to be, or he really would go crazy. “I need someone to believe me. I’d feel so much better if that someone was you.”

She was struggling with her disbelief, he could see. “I know how close you and Jerome were,” she said slowly, grasping at some explanation, “how responsible you felt for him. I think you holding on to this case is a way of you holding on to him.”

He couldn’t help the crushing disappointment. Of course it was crazy. Of course she couldn’t believe him, not without seeing the brains with her own eyes. And maybe he was chasing ghosts just to feel like he had done something for Jerome even now that it was too late. She had a point. And clearly, he wasn’t going to convince her that he had seen what he had seen, so he was going to have to convince her instead that she had proved her point. “You’re right,” he told her at last. “I don’t want you to be, but you are.”

“I know it’s not easy to let go.”

“I—I’ve gotta get my act together. This—this isn’t who I am.” Liv released a breath he hadn’t even noticed she was holding, in relief that he had come around, he assumed. “You know, if I’m gonna get into a fight with a biker gang, it should be because I, I accidentally knocked over a row of their hogs outside a dive bar.” That one was probably pushing it, but Liv seemed to buy it.

She took a step toward him. “Just promise me that you’ll back off from this Julian guy?”

“I promise.” They looked at each other, a comfortable, familiar silence between them. “You’re a good friend, Liv.” She always had been, until she wasn’t. He was glad to have this part of her back again.

Major closed the door behind her and returned to his computer, putting his earbuds back in and typing “Uses for Human Brains” into the search engine. He had promised to back off from Julian, not from the brains. He was going to get to the bottom of this if it was the last thing he did.


	8. Stop Chasing False Dreams

Major had been pacing back and forth half the day, it seemed. He was too wired to sit down, still filled with the adrenaline of last night’s attack and the astounding possibilities opened up by the guy he had shot in the chest—three times in the chest—getting up and walking out like nothing had happened. What the hell?

He’d been on the phone calling Ravi and Clive all day, barely restraining himself from adding Liv to the list, unable to stop spiraling in the midst of his own thing to really know how to feel for her. To lose someone you cared about suddenly, violently, the way she had lost Lowell, was horrible—but Major wasn’t sure he was ready to think about Liv caring about some other guy enough to let it get to her.

It was a relief when the doorbell rang. Major let Clive in, waiting anxiously to hear what the detective had to say. “Did you find Julian? Is he dead?”

“No, I found him at the gym. He was benching 350. Less than ten hours after you say you put three bullets in his chest.”

“Look, I’m telling you, I shot him!”

Clive pulled out his phone, tapped it a couple of times and showed Major a picture of Julian Dupont bench-pressing. “That him? It’s from this morning.”

It wasn’t possible. Major had shot this man last night. He knew he had, absolutely for certain knew it. “No, man,” he muttered. The evidence was in front of him, incontrovertible evidence … but he knew what he had done, and he knew what he had seen. 

“You’ve gotta listen right now,” Clive told him. “I’ve been in a lot of rooms where guns went off, and that room doesn’t look like any of them. No bullets, no blood, and the man you say you shot, didn’t get shot. What you’re saying happened, didn’t happen. And if you believe it did, you’ve got a problem.”

Still clutching Clive’s phone, Major found his way to the couch, his legs giving way beneath him. There was no way that both Clive’s/Julian’s version of the story and Major’s could exist in the same universe. But they did. Unless what Major thought had happened had all been in his head. He’d been under stress, no doubt about that. He’d been obsessed with Julian and Jerome and the Candy-Man. Could he have hallucinated Julian’s attack on him last night? And if he had, could a hallucination really feel that real?

Watching him, weighing his words carefully, Clive asked, “You heard of a 220?”

Major shook his head.

“Involuntary commitment to a psych facility. We use it when behavior is erratic, dangerous, and escalating. You’re three for three.”

Studying the phone, the picture, Major wanted to argue with the calm, emotionless assessment, but he knew that if he were Clive and he was faced with one of the kids from the shelter acting the way it must seem Major had been, he would be recommending psych evaluation, too. Maybe he needed it. God knew he couldn’t make sense of what was going on on his own.

“Hear this,” Clive went on, not unsympathetically. “Get help. Now. Before someone gets it for you.” Coming toward Major, reaching for his phone, he asked, “You need me to call someone?”

Major could only think of one person he wanted right now, and she—was out of his reach. He handed Clive his phone back. “Thanks for being straight with me.”

Clive nodded, patting Major on the shoulder. “Take care of yourself, man.”

He left, leaving Major sitting there alone, trying to make sense of the idea that what he had seen, what he had done, had never happened, when he knew as surely as he knew anything at all that it had.

By the next morning, he had decided. He hauled out his suitcase and began packing, glad to have a task, taking it seriously, packing nothing that didn’t pass the sniff test. He looked up only when Ravi, in pajamas and half-awake morning face, poked his head around the doorframe. 

“Can I interest you in a coffee?”

“I’m good.”

Ravi came further into the room, looking more awake as he frowned at Major’s packing job. “You’re leaving me. What’s his name?”

Major didn’t look up, playing along only out of habit and a certain amount of affection for Ravi and his steadfast good humor. “Ah, it’s not important. Just know that what we had was real.” His roommate smiled, acknowledging the joke given and received, and Major went on, “Actually, I, uh, talked to my supervisor at Helton Shelter, she referred me to a guy who specializes in psychotic disorders. Yeah, he thinks I’m a good candidate for Blooming Grove.”

“Wait, you’re not checking yourself in to a mental hospital—you’re not crazy!” Ravi insisted. “You’ve been under enormous stress! You just need to get away, go on vacation.”

“Ravi, I’m seeing things! I’d swear on a stack of Bibles that guy Julian was here. I’d swear his eyes turned red, that I shot him. If someone at my psych internship told me that, and there was a picture of that guy at the gym the next day? There’s no question. It’s delusional disorder, with paranoid features. You can’t fix that with a vacation.”

Ravi’s face was pinched, as if Major’s pain was his pain, and Major appreciated that, but he couldn’t be swayed by well-meaning friends. He had to get help now, before things got any worse. Before he hurt someone.

“I don’t have a choice.”

Without another word, Ravi turned and walked out of the room, and Major returned to his packing, finding something soothing in the process. This, at least, was real. It was tangible. Right now, he was in control of his own mind, and when was the last time he had been sure of that? The night before that damned boat party, he thought bitterly. When his whole life started to go off the rails. Maybe now, maybe with some help, he could get back on track.


	9. Just to Hear You Breathing

Major had given up on talking to Liv before he went into the hospital. Much as he wanted to talk to her, he couldn’t impose his own craziness—literally—on her when she was still reeling from the loss of what Major guessed he had to describe as her boyfriend. He cared too much for her to burden her like that.

So he was surprised and relieved and disturbed, all at the same time, to get a call from some random bartender that Liv was in his bar, totally blitzed, and needed him to come get her. When had Liv ever gotten that drunk when Peyton wasn’t involved? It wasn’t like her to drink alone. Or maybe it was, now. So much of what she had done in the last year had been unlike her.

As he walked through the door of the bar, he felt almost normal. Like he was still Liv’s guy, coming to get her when she needed him, and he had to be grateful for that, for this last glimpse of his old life before he went away to make sense of the new one. 

He found her at the bar, looking lost and alone, and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Hey. You ready to go home?” God, he wished he was taking her home, to the home that had been supposed to be theirs—but going back to her place was almost better, since it didn’t have any fake memories of attacks by weird red-eyed guys who turned out not to have been there.

“Yeah. No. I mean … thanks for coming to get me.”

Major squeezed her shoulder. “Any time.”

He helped her make sure she had her purse and her sweater and everything she had come with, assisted by the bartender, who seemed like a good guy. This whole scene could have been a lot worse. Putting his arm around Liv, he steadied her as she stumbled. “Come on, my car’s right outside.”

“I don’t want to think,” she announced.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to. Thinking’s overrated.” He smiled.

“You can say that again, buster.”

He considered doing just that, going for the laugh, but she was balancing between maudlin and belligerent and nauseous in her level of drunkenness, and he really didn’t want any of those to come out on top. 

It was a fairly silent drive back to her place. Major wanted to talk—to tell her what was going on with him, to ask her about the guy and what had happened and help her talk through it, but he also didn’t want to talk to her about any of those things, especially not in her current condition. And Liv mostly seemed to want to not throw up, which Major appreciated, since he didn’t have time to clean his car in the morning before heading to Blooming Groves.

He led her to the door of her apartment, letting her lean against the wall while he found her keys in her purse and unlocked the door, and then he led her to her room, helping with her shoes before lifting the covers to let her slide into bed. She got in, curling up on her side, but she didn’t seem tired. She seemed—anguished. And empty. He hadn’t seen that blank look in her eyes in a long time, but now it was back, fighting for dominance with a raw pain that struck him in the gut. She had really cared for the other guy, then. This hadn’t been a Corinne-like excuse to move on, this had been a real connection. Major was glad for her, and sad for her, and consumed with envy, all at once. And maybe somewhere underneath there was some anger, that she had set all this in motion, the rolling ball that had chased Major all this way before utterly flattening him … but it was hard to be mad at Liv at the worst of times, and would have been completely unfair in her current condition. 

Gently, Major tucked the covers around her. “Good-night. I’m … so sorry.”

“Don’t,” she said, her voice a monotone. With an effort, she continued, “Please. I’m trying so hard to stay afloat, and if you … say his name, or …”

“It’s okay.” Major understood. Or he thought he did. He turned to go, wanting to say good-bye, not knowing when he would see her again or what state he’d be in when he did, but not wanting to burden her, either.

Liv’s voice stopped him. “Wait.” When he turned to look at her, she asked, “Can you rub my back like you used to?”

God, yes. Being close to her was all he had wanted for such a long time. He lay down behind her, tugging the covers down just enough to be able to see her back, rubbing in small, soothing circles. So familiar. Hard to believe there was a time when he had done this to soothe her from the daily stresses of the life of a med student. That seemed so far away, so … utterly banal, now.

After a moment, Liv said softly, “Ravi told me about—that you’re checking yourself into—“

“We can not talk about this, too.”

“You’re okay?” she asked.

“It’s no big deal. My PR guy’s telling the tabloid’s it’s exhaustion. I’ll be doing _The View_ when I get back.”

She actually smiled at that, a little breath of a laugh, and god, that felt good. He had missed making her laugh. 

“I’ll be fine,” he assured her. “It’s not for long. … I’m just sorry that when you need me the most, I lose my mind.”

“I screwed everything up,” Liv murmured, her words slurring so he wasn’t sure he’d heard her at first. “I want to explain, I want to tell you—“

“No. No, it’s okay.” It was, too. She had gone through something so traumatic at that boat party, her whole world had stopped. And now Major’s was swirling around him like a carnival ride he couldn’t seem to get off. 

Liv shifted, burrowing a little further into the pillows. “My fault,” she whispered. “My fault.”

Him, or the other guy, or both? Major wondered, continuing to rub her back even as her breathing deepened, not wanting to pull himself away from her just yet. He hoped when she woke up in the morning she would know it wasn’t her fault … or at least, not all of it.

He lay there with her, watching her sleep, dreaming about simpler times, long into the night.


	10. To Pick Up Every Stitch

By the time Major had been in the institution for a couple of weeks it had become routine—mornings were for chess with Scott E. and another round of discussion of Scott E.’s favorite conspiracy theory: boat party zombies. 

“I tell you, Major, it was the freakiest damn thing you ever saw. Their eyes were all red and they were chasing down everyone they could find. People were screaming and diving off the boat and having their throats torn out … I don’t even remember how I got away.”

“Come on, just make your move, man. You were imagining it. Like you do the devil. Giving the delusion voice only gives it power.” But Major couldn’t help remembering the red eyes of Julian Dupont—and the fact that the man had gotten up from multiple gunshots to the chest. It wasn’t possible that zombies were real … but it sure would explain some things.

“What if it’s not a delusion? What if I saw exactly what I think I did, and they’re calling me crazy to keep the secret under wraps? You ever think of that?” Scott E.’s eyes were wide and wild. He actually was paranoid and delusional, Major reminded himself. Zombies weren’t real.

“And you’re sure you never saw the brown-haired girl in the red dress?” He had tried to describe Liv, but found he had a hard time picturing pre-boat party Liv. Maybe she had always looked the way she did now, and his memory was playing tricks on him. In here, anything was possible.

“No, man. Wish I had.”

“Yeah. Me, too.” Although at least Liv still had her sanity, even if her personality had altered almost completely. For the millionth time, at least, Major wished he had gone to that damn party with her.

When Scott E. turned up dead in his room, Major was shocked and saddened … but not entirely surprised. At least, not as long as he thought it was suicide. Once Ravi had declared it a murder, Major had to start thinking about the crazy conspiracy theories—and about the zombies. What if it was possible? Could he really afford to let it go unmentioned?

He was sitting there studying the chess board, trying to decide if it was crazier to give credence to the idea of zombies or crazier to let a potential lead go unmentioned when Liv came into the room. 

“Careful,” she said as she approached. “Don’t open yourself up to the classic Reverse Sicilian gambit.” She looked at him hoping for a joke, but his wit was coming pretty slowly these days. “That’s a chess thing, right?”

“Sounds more like something a call girl would make you pay extra for,” he said, as the best he could come up with. 

Liv took the seat across the chess board from him, giving up the attempt at banter. “Listen, I apologize for Clive going all Joe Friday back there.”

Major couldn’t blame the man—Clive had already been suspicious of him, and now here his closest companion inside turned up dead and Major was the first to find him. Suspicious circumstances all over the place. Without intending to, Major found himself approaching the topic that had been on his mind ever since Scott E. had talked to him after his first group session. “Scott E. did tell me something else.” He leaned forward, putting the chess piece he had been fiddling with back on the board. “It’s just … It’s so crazy.” Too crazy, Major. Abort. Abort! But this was Liv, after all, and if he couldn’t tell Liv, who could he tell? “Liv, did you see anything strange at the boat party?”

She looked stricken, and he realized too late that of course she was the last person he should have been bringing this up with. She was still recovering from the trauma of that party, how could he put this on her? “You mean, besides all the bloodshed … and the fire and the corpses?” she asked.

He had come this far. He had to know. If Liv had seen zombies, wouldn’t that explain some of her distress? “He said … He said he saw … zombies.”

Her eyes widened, and for a moment he thought that was it, that was what she had been keeping to herself all this time, that she'd seen them, too. But then she smiled, like the idea was too weird to be considered. “Zombies? Like … real flesh-eating zombies?”

“Look, I—I know. But he said he didn’t just see these zombies, he got ‘em on video. On his phone.”

“Did he show it to you?” Liv asked, her smile fading.

“No. But he, uh, he said he sent it to a friend. Someone in local TV.” Liv was thinking rapidly, he could see it in her face, and he wondered what she really had seen. Maybe actually she’d seen zombies and was trying to wrap her head around the idea that someone else had as well. “Like I say,” Major continued, watching her closely, “crazy … right?”

“Yeah. Crazy. Right.” Liv got to her feet. “But whatever he did capture on that video may just have something to do with why someone killed him. Thanks, Major.”

“Sure.” 

She looked at him, really studying his face. “You doing okay?”

“As well as can be for someone in here.”

“Take care of yourself, Major. I’ll—I’ll keep you posted on the progress of the investigation, as much as I can.”

“Thanks.” He watched her walk away, wondering one more time just what the hell had happened that night on Lake Washington.

With Scott E. gone, it seemed more important to Major that he find out what had happened to his friend than that he continue his treatment, so he checked himself out of the hospital. He ended up spending the evening at Liv’s, watching a movie with her and Peyton and Ravi, wishing for the days when he and Liv would have ended up in the bedroom, the way Peyton and Ravi did, but glad that at least they could hang out together as friends now.

That night, he checked out Scott E.’s apartment, finding Julian there, and a blond guy with him. Major was sure he was on to something now—and he was definitely a step closer to believing in Scott E.’s zombie theory. He got out of the apartment by a back window as they came in a front one, found their car, popped open the trunk, and climbed inside. When the car had stopped for a while, and he was sure they must have gotten out and gone inside wherever they were, he got out as well, cautiously, finding himself in front of some place called Meat Cute. Inside through the window he could see Julian and the blond guy.

So he staked the place out, watching as it opened up in the morning. When he saw a big Asian guy come out with a bunch of small coolers, just like the one he had taken from Julian Dupont’s car, he knew he was on the right track. Would there be brains in those, too?

The Asian guy went back inside, and Major ran for the car, scooping up all the coolers and taking off with them. Now he would know. Now he would have proof that he had never been crazy.

He took them straight to Liv’s. She needed to know what he knew, to know she wasn’t crazy, either, if she had seen something she’d never told anyone about. 

As the door closed behind him, she asked how the job search was going.

Major frowned at her. “Job search?”

“You told me mission one was finding a job—didn’t you?”

“No, must’ve been someone else.” He couldn’t wait or he’d lose his nerve. “Liv, I, uh … I gotta show you something. Don’t freak out, all right? I wasn’t crazy.” He looked around quickly. “No one else is here, right?”

Liv shook her head. “Just us.” She looked upset, and Major felt badly for upsetting her further, but it couldn’t be helped.

He ducked out the door and picked up the coolers he had left there, bringing them inside. “It’s the world that’s crazy. And I’ve got proof.” He put the coolers down. “Zombies are real, Liv. These coolers are full of brains. Now, it’s a lot to absorb, I know, but don’t worry, because I’m gonna explain everything. And don’t worry, because I’m gonna kill ‘em. I’m gonna kill ‘em all.”

“Major …”

“Yeah, we should probably sit down.” He carried the coolers over to the table and set them down, only then noticing that she was still standing by the door as if frozen to the spot. “Liv? Tell me—did you see anything the night of the boat party?”

“I … I’m not sure. I—“ She was trembling. He went to her and took her hands.

“So, this is what I found out. I went to Scott E.’s place, and while I was there, this guy Julian showed up. You remember him, the one I shot that Clive saw at the gym the next day?” Liv nodded, still looking dazed. “He was with another man, a bleached blond guy. They torched Scott E.’s apartment, but while they were doing that I hid in their trunk.”

“Major!” She clung to his hands.

“It’s okay, Liv. I can take care of myself, I promise,” he assured her. Whatever was going on here, it had to do with that damned boat party, and with whatever she’d been too traumatized to talk about all this time. He had to believe that if he fixed this, if he killed these creatures, it might go part of the way toward healing Liv, too.

“Oh, god,” she whispered. 

Major led her to the couch, sitting with her, still holding her hands, which were ice-cold in his. “When I got out of the car trunk, I saw Julian and the blond guy inside a restaurant. It’s called Meat Cute, which … seems a little precious, don’t you think?”

Liv stared at him until she realized he was looking for a response. “A little?” 

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” He squeezed her hands reassuringly. “So then I waited until the next day, staking out the place. When I saw a guy come out with all these little coolers, just like the one I saw in Julian’s car before, I waited until he went back in—and I took them.”

“Major, can we—can you let me look into this now? You could get hurt.”

“I’ll be okay. And I have to do this. For Eddie and Jerome, for Scott E., for everyone these guys have hurt. I’m going to take these guys down.” He looked at Liv, deep into her eyes. “I know it’s a lot to adjust to, but—I didn’t know who else to talk to. I didn’t want to talk to anyone else.”

“I know. I just … I think I need a little time to … get used to it. Okay?”

“Okay. Can I leave these here with you?”

She looked past him at the pile of coolers. “Why don’t I take one and have it tested, make sure what kind of brain it is?”

“Good idea.” Major was sure they were human brains, but if she tested them, she would be sure, too. “You’ll let me know what you find out?”

Liv gave him a faint, forced smile. “You’ll be the first.”


	11. Break These Walls Down

Major looked down at the bed, where the fruits of his purchase lay like so many pieces of exercise equipment. Except that the only muscle these were going to exercise was his trigger finger. Was he really doing this? Could he do this? Shouldn’t he wait for the results of the tests on the brains Liv had taken?

He remembered, as vividly as if it was still happening, Julian’s red eyes. Remembered the feeling of shooting him in the chest and watching him fall, knowing that he, Major Lilywhite, had killed a man … and then the feeling of looking at that bare floor with Clive, wondering if he had gone mad. Whatever was going on at Meat Cute, it was bad. They were zombies. Incredible, unbelievable as it was, it was the only explanation that made any sense. And because it was so incredible, so unbelievable that even Liv hadn’t been able to take him seriously at first, he couldn’t ask for back-up. If someone else got hurt in the process, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself.

No. He was doing this. He was doing this by himself. For Liv. For Peyton. For Ravi and Clive and the kids at the shelter and the people in Blooming Grove, and the rest of Seattle—and the world, for that matter.

And he was freaking terrified.

Major pulled out the chair from his desk and sat in it, facing the array of guns on the bed. Yeah, he was scared. Could he do it, even if he was scared? He thought so, but … it was easy to think you could do something, and a lot harder in the moment to actually get it done. He was glad he’d bought the self-help tapes. Okay, so they were pretty hokey, but since he could hardly go to anyone he knew and tell them what he was planning—even Liv, since her first response would either be to not let him go or to insist on coming with him, neither of which he could allow—better to have a disembodied voice trying to talk him out of his fear than nothing at all. He wasn’t even sure he was afraid to die. Life was good … or, had been good, but now there was really nothing ahead of him. No Liv, no job. Maybe that would all pass, or maybe it wouldn’t. Either way, he was okay in the long run with trading his life for the death of a nest of zombies. As okay as you could be, he supposed. But what if they caught him? He was kind of afraid of a slow, painful death, if he was being honest with himself. And—even more honest—he was even more afraid of being turned. Scratches, bites, he wasn’t sure how it happened, but he didn’t want it to happen to him. Life as Major Lilywhite, failed fiance and washed-up counselor, was bad enough. Life as a zombie? Eating people’s brains? Not being able to look at Liv, or anyone he loved, and see them for anything beyond his next meal? No. Too bad there wasn’t a zombie vaccine. 

Still, afraid or not, it had to be done. By him, since no one else seemed to have found them out for what they were. Which meant he would have to do it very quickly, very clean, and very well. 

He remembered his junior high football coach’s favorite saying: Proper preparation prevents poor performance. Mostly he remembered it because of how hard they had all rolled their eyes every time he’d said it, and not because his junior high team had been known for any kind of good performance on the field … but it wasn’t wrong. Resolutely, Major got to his feet and loaded the guns and the grenade into his gym bag. He would drive by tonight and case the place out, and then when everyone was gone, he would walk himself through a dry run, visualizing every move.

The tapes spouted their positive, fear-free message at him as he drove over, taking an extra couple of loops ostensibly to allow time for the shop to shut down, but really to keep listening, and to put off the moment he had to start making the real plan. At last he told himself what a wuss he was and forced himself to drive to Meat Cute, to park across the street, and to start thinking about how he would do it. In the front door with the shotgun, preferably when as many of them as possible were in sight. He didn’t know for sure how to kill a zombie, but given the obsession with brains, he figured shooting them in the head was probably the way to go. He hoped Julian was there—he really owed that guy a shotgun shell to the cranium.

A car pulled up and parked behind him, the headlights reflecting off Major’s rearview mirror, and he winced at the brightness, waiting for the lights to turn off and the guy to go away.

Instead, he got out of his car, leaving the lights on. Through the glare, it was hard to see, but he looked like a big guy. And he was coming toward Major’s window. Major prepared a casual smile and a quick story about waiting for a girlfriend who was at the salon in the next block—but he never got past the smile, because the driver’s side door was yanked open and a large fist collided with his nose, and Major lost consciousness only seconds after recognizing the beefy guy pulling him out of the car as Julian.

He came to with a gag in his mouth, and his hands bound above his head … in a freezer. In the meat freezer at Meat Cute. _Great, Lilywhite. Just great_. 

So, he was their prisoner—but he wasn’t dead. Why wasn’t he dead? Because he had something they wanted, he realized. The coolers. They must have been valuable. Valuable brains? Maybe they were the brains of someone famous. That would be a thing, right? If you were a zombie, maybe a rich zombie, you’d want to eat special brains. Cool brains. Yeah. That had to be it. So if he didn’t tell them where the brains were, maybe they’d leave him alive long enough for him to figure out how to get out of here. Or to come up with a way to contact Liv, or Clive. 

He heard footsteps outside the locker, and then the door opened and the owner of Meat Cute, the one with the bleached white hair, came in, with Julian just behind him. God, how Major wanted to kill that guy. He imagined taking his bonds down and wrapping them around Julian’s neck until his eyes popped out. Wait, did zombies breathe? He watched the bleached blond. Yes, it seemed like they did. Good.

The blond nodded at Julian, and that was when the hitting started. Major took it as well as he could, despite the pain in his face and his shoulders and arms. It stopped for a moment, and the blond got up close and personal. “You wouldn’t know anything about some brains, would you?”

Gagged as he was, all his quips would be wasted, so Major instead concentrated on breathing through the pain, ignoring the question. 

“Brains. In boxes. Little plastic boxes, in little yellow coolers. Look, guy, we know you took ‘em. We just want ‘em back, that’s all.”

Yeah. Of course. That was all. Give the brains back so they could be fed to zombies. Too late, Major thought how much smarter it might have been to follow the delivery person and figure out where the brains were going first. Maybe next time, he told himself, before Julian’s fist connected with his solar plexus and pain was all he could think of.

After a while, they decided to freeze the answers out of him. At least they took him down, took the gag off. That was something. For now, it was enough, Major thought, curling into a ball around his pain, trying to keep as warm as he could. Somehow, he was going to get free, and then he really was going to kill them, and he wasn’t going to be afraid now. Now, after this, he was going to enjoy it.


	12. Lost Inside

Major had never really given a lot of thought to what it would be like to be held prisoner by a bunch of zombies and be tortured by them for information, and now he was kind of glad he had never wasted the time. He would have seriously underestimated how much it sucked.

He hadn’t minded the beatings. Those were pretty much de rigueur for being captured and tortured. And being locked in the freezer was a nice touch. Whimsical. And he could tell that the blond, Blaine, prided himself on being whimsical. He’d held his own against all of it, managing to match Blaine quip for quip without telling them anything.

The soup, though. The soup he had drunk so gratefully, as much for the warmth that he could feel moving through his body as for his body’s increasing need for food and fuel to fight the continued cold. And then to find that what he was eating was not, in fact, bratwurst, but brains. He had wanted to retch the whole disgusting concoction up, but hadn’t had the energy left to do so. But then, when they wheeled in Tommy’s body, on a hook, his eyes so empty, and turned him around to show Major the empty skull where the brain should have been … It was one thing to know what they were doing to these innocent, troubled kids. It was another thing entirely to have it shown to him so graphically. He’d wanted to kill them—and to weep for Tommy, and Eddie, and Jerome, and all the other kids whose lives had been cut short by these monsters. He’d attacked Blaine, only to be taken down by a fist in the gut from yet another of Blaine’s muscle-bound minions. Even that hadn’t caused him to upchuck the brain stew.

It had, however, determined him that this waiting game had gone on long enough. He wasn’t about to actually let them freeze him to death, and he no longer had any qualms about killing them, or anyone else in this place who might get in his way. He was going to stop them. Today. 

Major was pretty cold by now, and his brain was moving sluggishly. He did some warm-up stretches to try to clear his head, thinking about what he could use in the freezer to get out. Frozen meats? Only if they came in unprepared, and Blaine seemed to pretty much always be prepared. Major glanced past Tommy’s body, trying not to look—but that was foolish, wasn’t it? Tommy was dead; there was nothing Major could do to help him or to hurt him, not now. And maybe … hadn’t Tommy been a smoker? He was pretty sure of it. Maybe he still had his lighter.

Little as he wanted to, Major forced himself to go through Tommy’s pockets. The lighter was there! Major felt like cheering—and like using the tiny flame to warm himself up. But neither one was particularly practical right at the moment, so he pushed himself to think further. What next? He looked out the window of the freezer, seeing the big silent one slicing meat. Real meat, it looked like. Unless they were cannibals as well as zombies. Major shuddered. Right now, he was thinking pretty seriously about becoming a vegetarian.

So, he could start a fire. They might let him burn to death, but they wouldn’t take the chance of letting the building burn down, if only to keep firefighters and cops from getting too close to the place. No, they would want to stop the fire. So one of them would come in. How could he get the drop on them? Create a patch of ice near the door? With what?

With the only thing he had on him. He unbuckled his belt, dropped his pants, and was glad that he had never had a shy bladder.

It worked like a charm. Bonus that it was the silent one, because he couldn’t call out for help. Even more bonus that apparently he was an idiot, because he didn’t go get help. But that was all to Major’s advantage. As the silent one lay there in front of him, dazed from the sudden fall, Major clocked him in the head with a leg of lamb, and then he rushed out of the freezer and locked Silent Bob back in. With Tommy’s burning body. Major felt bad about that, but Tommy would have appreciated the irony, or so he imagined.

So far, no one else seemed to know what was happening. Maybe they couldn’t hear over the sound of the meat slicer and the music coming from the front room. He couldn’t believe his luck. He took a moment to breathe, to feel the warmth of the room around him, before running out of the shop. By some miracle, his car was still where he’d left it. By an even greater miracle, whoever had searched his car for the missing brains hadn’t found the hiding place with the stockpile of weapons.

Major loaded up. He wished he had something with more pockets, better pockets, than his jeans, but you did what you could with what you had. It was now or never, and he was going to end this.

Two of the minions and the cook lady were pigging out in the front of the shop, still blaring the music. His first shot took down the window. He kept shooting as the three zombies ducked behind the table, hitting one, who ran into the back of the shop. Not an auspicious beginning.

The big bald minion was blinded by blood running into his eyes, shooting in entirely the wrong place. Major took the moment to make proper aim, then let go with the shotgun and had the satisfaction of seeing the minion’s brains splatter across the room. He turned immediately toward the open door to the back of the shop, not wanting to be ambushed; then it came to him—why not do some ambushing himself? He left through the open window, as quietly as he could, and walked around to the back, easing the back door open and slipping inside. He had the shotgun leveled at the other minion before the guy knew what was happening. 

That left the woman, who was shivering in terror—almost convincingly, especially once she put down the butcher knife. She came toward him, begging for her life, swearing she was an innocent victim. The minions had been easy, but this woman seemed so normal. Like somebody’s mom. 

Major gestured with the shotgun. “It’s okay. Just … get out of here.”

She looked like she was going to—but she passed by a conveniently placed mirror just in time for Major to see her pulling another knife out of her apron, so he was able to swing the shotgun up even as she charged him. He ended up hitting her with his elbow, knocking her charge off course, and she took care of herself by falling face-first into the slicer. It was gross, and Major was kind of sorry for her … but not too sorry. She’d been the one cooking up those kids’ brains, after all.

He pulled the handgun just as Silent Bob’s face showed up in the window of the freezer, and Major shot him right between the eyes without a second’s thought. 

The shop was silent now, just Major and a bunch of dead people. He should get out of here, he thought. Someone would have heard the shots and called the police, and he did not want to be found here. But … Julian. God, he wanted to kill Julian. He promised himself he would wait until he heard sirens.

Fortunately for him, Julian showed up before he could. Even more fortunately, Julian walked right through the temptingly open freezer door, just the way Major had hoped he would. He shut the door with a feeling of absolute glee, and looked at Julian through the window as he pulled the pin on the grenade. “Walk away from this.” Then he ducked below the door, glad for its thick metal between him and the end of Julian—finally. 

He stood up, looking in through the window and admiring his handiwork, and was feeling pretty damn good about tonight’s work—until he turned around to see Blaine standing there. Before he could react, there was a knife sliding into his guts, and it hurt. A lot. Like you would have expected it to, really, if you’d been thinking this night would end with you getting stabbed in the gut. Major sank to his knees, futilely trying to stop the flow of the blood by clamping his hand over the wound. It was bleeding too much, though. This would be the end. Overall, he wasn't sure he minded, but he wished he could see Liv again.

Blaine was taking stock of the damage, turning things off. He kicked Major over onto his back in a fit of pique. “Just what we need, a noise complaint. You got the slow and agonizing death thing under control, right? Great. Hope it hurts.”

It really did. So much that Major couldn’t summon up a quip. He was disappointed in himself for that. He’d have liked to go out giving Blaine as good as he got. 

Vaguely he was aware of Blaine walking to the front of the shop, and a loud sound. Another gunshot? It was hard to care, not with pain moving through him, a whole different kind of cold starting at his feet and beginning to move up his legs. Voices now, arguing. One … familiar? He struggled to place it. No, she couldn’t be here. Could she?

He called her name, because he couldn’t not call her name, because she was all he wanted. “Liv!”

And then, in the greatest miracle of the night, she was there, on her knees next to him. “We have to stop the bleeding!” Always the doctor. She should have been a doctor, finished medical school. Why hadn’t she? He would never know now. Maybe he didn’t need to know.

“Just … be here with me. Okay?” She didn’t answer, and he wanted her to know that he had succeeded—that she was safe. “I told you there were zombies. You didn’t believe me.” 

She lifted a hand, stroking his hair. He had missed her touch so much. 

And then Blaine was there, in the midst of Major’s last moment, his beautiful moment alone with Liv. He was laughing.

“Wait. He doesn’t know.” Blaine had a wound, as well, his hand clasped over it, but it wasn’t so bad. Or he was a zombie and it didn’t matter. He looked down at Major. “Dude, you are about to go out with one large dose of irony. Seattle’s preeminent zombie hunter, not realizing the entire time that his own beloved …”

Major didn’t want to look. He didn’t want to believe. But in the increasing fog that filled his head, it made so much sense. Her hair and her eyes. The way she had withdrawn from everyone. Ending the engagement but still seeming like she loved him. No. Not Liv. That couldn’t be. His Liv wasn’t a monster.

“I mean, the hair, the eyes, the complexion,” Blaine continued, forcing Major to see it even while he tried not to. “You thought those were, what, just questionable style choices?”

“Liv,” Major murmured. “You.”

She wasn’t denying it. She was stricken, she was anguished, but she wasn’t denying it. 

“Major.” She touched him again, and he couldn’t help but pull away. “Please, I—“

The fog was clouding his vision now, his ears ringing. Everything seemed very far away. Too far to care. He let himself go. There was no longer any reason not to.


	13. All You Do Is Think

When the fog lifted, Major was in a car. He knew somewhere deep in him that he’d been dying, and for a moment part of him hoped that this was the modern-day version of Charon, driving him across a bridge over the river Styx. But then he opened his eyes, just a peek, to see Liv driving. And not his Liv, but this new Liv, this ( _zombie_ ) Liv, with her white hair and her pale skin, and he knew instantly what she had done. What she had made him. 

The hunger hit him almost as soon as the realization struck. And not just any hunger. Thick juicy steak? No. Spicy hot wings dripping with sauce? Nuh-uh. He wanted brains. Somehow his mouth knew just how they would feel, thick and chewy, and his stomach growled.

“We’ll get you something to eat as soon as we can,” Liv said in response. 

He grunted and turned toward the window, ignoring her. She pulled up eventually in front of her apartment building, and he thought about making a scene, refusing to go in—but he didn’t want to talk to her, didn’t even want to look at her, and underneath it all was the stridency of his hunger. He needed brains, needed them badly, and without Liv, who could he go to? Ravi?

It occurred to him, as he was allowing Liv to lead him into her apartment and get him settled in her bed, that Ravi must know. Ravi must have known all this time. So while Major was raving at him about human brains and zombies, checking himself into the loony bin, Ravi had been weighing whether to tell Liv’s secret. And Liv would have told him not to. Because, apparently, she could tell her boss, whom she’d just met, but she couldn’t tell the man she’d said she loved. Peachy.

He lay there in bed, brooding about it, wanting the last five hours—hell, the last five months—back, while Liv did something in the kitchen. She came back in with a bowl of … something on a tray.

“You should try to get this down. It won’t satisfy your … cravings, but it’ll help you get your strength back.”

Major kept his eyes closed. He didn’t want to look at her. He didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t want her food or her bed or her attention.

“It gets better,” Liv said, sitting down on the bed next to him. “But it would be lying to say you get used to it,” she added.

The bitterness bubbled up from his chest without thought. “Doesn’t lying come naturally to you by now?”

She looked like he had hit her. He almost wished he could.

He shifted in the bed. “You’re a zombie. Well, you’ve been a zombie since that night on the lake, and, instead of telling me the truth, you decided it would be easier to break my heart.”

“Better,” she said quickly. “Not easier. I know what you would have done if I told you.”

“You have no faith in me.” That was what hurt the most, that she hadn’t trusted him. After everything they’d been to each other, she hadn’t trusted him when it really counted.

“I have more faith in you than anyone ever. You would have told me that it doesn’t matter, that you loved me anyway—“

Major looked away. He would have told her that, and he did love her anyway, even now. Even after the lies and the betrayal.

“And you would have sentenced yourself to a life without sex, without children. It’s who you are,” Liv continued. She was in serious doctor mode now, spelling out the truth as she saw it, and while he had always loved watching her in this mode, he had never liked having it aimed at him. “I couldn’t ask that of you.”

“You couldn’t ask that of me—but you turned me into a zombie without my permission.”

“Rather than watch you die.”

“You know what I want? What sounds good to me? Brains. Human brains. So you—you—you eat them. Don’t you? You must.” Somehow it was hard to imagine her eating brains, hard to see her the way he had seen Julian, or Blaine, or the minions. But she was like them. Maybe she’d even bought brains from them. Or … maybe she ate them when they came in on the slab. Of course. Medical examiner. Well, it all made sense now, didn’t it? “You eat the brains of people who come in the morgue.”

“When zombies eat brains, we get the memories of the deceased, and I help solve their murders.”

How generous of her. “So, that’s what helps you sleep at night. Hm. What about me? What’s the greater good for me?”

“Us?” Liv offered, hesitantly. “I hope. We can be together now. It’s not how we imagined, but …” She reached for his hand, holding it in both of hers. How many times these last months had he wished to have her here, offering him what they’d had before, holding his hand? How many times had he needed her, and she had been hiding from him, lying to him, all along. “It’s what fate dealt us,” Liv finished, looking at him hopefully.

Major pulled his hand away. He didn’t want this now, not this way. Couldn’t she understand what she had done to him? To them? “It’s not what fate dealt me, Liv. You did. The same person who let me check myself into a mental hospital, let me think I was crazy. When you had a chance to play god and decide whether I died or—became this, did you decide based on what you wanted, or what you thought I wanted? If it’s what you thought I wanted, then you don’t know me as well as you think you do.” He rolled over onto his side, as much to avoid seeing the look in her eyes as to make perfectly clear that he wanted no part of her or her zombie-ism. What _did_ he want? he thought. It had been so clear, but now … He couldn’t see any future that offered him fulfillment or happiness. She should have let him die.

At some point, Liv got up, picking up her unwanted tray of food and leaving the room, and Major lay there trying to decide what to do next. He should get up and leave—but in this condition, he would be a danger to the next person he ran into, he was so hungry for brains. He should give Liv a chance to explain herself … but he didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to think about what it must have been like for her. He wanted to hold on to his hurt and the sense of betrayal that filled him, to blame her and her alone for everything that had gone wrong all this time. Anything was better than admitting that he’d been nothing without her, that he hadn’t been able to move on because he still loved her, that he loved her even now, even as he lay here with the sluggish blood of a zombie moving through his veins because of her.

Lost in his misery, Major fell asleep at last. 

He woke up to a sharp stabbing pain in his arm, turning his head sleepily to see Liv injecting him with … something. 

“Whatever happens now, I hope you can forgive me,” she said with a calm that he could tell was hard-won only because he knew her so well. “I doubt humanity’s going to.”

“What? What did you do?”

Her phone buzzed on the table near the bed before she could answer, but he felt it in the renewed beat of his pulse and in his sudden hunger for steak, or fried chicken, or anything that wasn’t—brains. 

Liv said into the phone, “Mom?” and then “Oh, god.” And then she was rushing out of the room, shouting to Major over her shoulder that her brother was hurt. He was left there in her apartment, newly human again, with no idea what to do, where to go, or even who he was anymore.


	14. What I Give

Liv didn’t come home. Major lay there in her bed until it felt too weird, then he got up and got dressed, grimacing as he put the bloodied shirt back on. His temporary zombieism had mostly healed the bullet wound in his side—he could barely even feel it now. So there was that, he guessed. On the whole, he still wasn’t entirely sure he wouldn’t rather be dead. What was there left? Beg Helton for his job back, or barring that, for a half-decent reference? Go get some kind of temporary job that wasn’t what he had dreamed of doing all his life, just to put food on the table and pay the rent? Play zombie-shooting games with Ravi and pretend that it wasn’t painfully ironic? 

He understood finally why Peyton had skipped town. She must have learned about Liv and been unable to handle it. Major wished he couldn’t handle it. He’d have liked a nice mental breakdown right about now. But Scott E.’s death had really put an end to any respite Major might otherwise have found in a mental institution.

Just the thought of it made his blood boil. Liv had known. He had told her everything, and rather than trust him with the truth, even then, she had treated him like a child and let him go toddling off believing he was going out of his mind.

He couldn’t think about it another second, certainly not while standing here in the middle of her apartment. He banged out of there before considering that his car was still at Meat Cute. 

It didn’t matter, though. He would run. He needed the exercise. God, did he ever. Pounding his feet into the pavement, even in shoes that were all wrong for it, felt good. Feeling the air in his lungs, the blood pumping through his veins, the sweat standing out on his forehead … It wasn’t all bad to be alive. And not a zombie. Liv probably didn’t feel any of this anymore, not this way. He had only briefly been a zombie, but he remembered that feeling of everything being distant, nothing being quite right.

A car pulled up next to him and he ignored it, continuing to run. So his shirt was covered in blood—did he really need the neighborhood busybody bugging him about it? But then the car honked its horn and he gave it an irritated glance. Ravi leaned over to open the passenger side door. “Major! What the hell— You know what, never mind. Just get in.”

Briefly, Major considered not doing it. But he was going to have to see Ravi eventually, and his boots were creating a hell of a blister. He sat back against the passenger seat. “What’s up?”

“You haven’t heard? Someone blew up Meat Cute.”

“Yeah … not really. That was me.”

“No, after you. There was an explosion. Captain Suzuki, Clive’s boss, was killed in it. They’re calling him a hero cop, saying he took out all those men himself.” Ravi shook his head. “They’re saying it was a drug ring.”

“And do you think it was a drug ring?” Major asked cautiously, not entirely sure how much Ravi knew.

The don’t-be-an-idiot look his roommate cast him was his answer. “Liv called. She told me what happened to you—that you know now.” Ravi frowned. “Wait. You don’t look like a zombie.”

“I’m not. Liv cured me.”

“She did what?” Ravi slammed his foot on the brakes, causing the wheels to squeal and the car to fishtail. Once he had it back under control and the chorus of honks from around them had slowed, he glanced at Major. “She cured you?”

“Yeah. Uh … Ravi, if she has a cure, then why—?”

“We had one cure. Maybe two doses. But I can’t synthesize more without it because I can’t recreate the exact chemical compound of the tainted utopium that was used to create the zombie virus in the first place.”

“She gave me her cure?”

“Looks that way.”

“Huh.” Major supposed he should feel bad—but he hadn’t asked her to make him a zombie in the first place, he thought defensively. “Ravi. Is that why Peyton—“

“Yeah.” Ravi studied the traffic to avoid having to look at Major.

“I figured as much.”

“You know, I can’t figure you two out. You’ve both known Liv for years. You’re both meant to love her. But you find out about her and Peyton bails and you treat her like she’s—“ Ravi stopped himself and took a breath. “Look, I get that it’s complicated, but can you at least take one moment and think about what those six months were like for her? Terrified, not knowing what was going to happen to her, afraid to talk to anyone, afraid to go near anyone until she was sure she understood how it was transmitted? Completely alone in the wreck of everything she had ever hoped to be.”

“Yeah, I can kind of imagine what that’s like,” Major said bitterly.

“You mean you can’t stop thinking of what it’s like for you long enough to think about Liv. Let me tell you, that is the strongest woman I have ever met. Anyone less so would never have survived it.” Ravi glanced at him as he pulled off the expressway. “And she still loves you. Which is why she couldn’t sit there and let you die. In her place, would you have been able to give up on her?”

Major started to say something, but the truth was he couldn’t have. Not ever. And as much as he didn’t want to admit it, he knew Liv couldn’t have let him go either.

“Good. Now get your head out of your ass before we go inside, because she is in no condition for your issues.”

“What?” Belatedly, Major realized that they were parking in the hospital parking lot. “Why are we here?”

“Her brother, Major. Evan was at Meat Cute—starting a job, I guess—when it exploded. He was caught in the blast. We’re going in there to be with Liv.” Ravi turned off the car and looked Major full in the face. “Can you do this? For her? And leave everything else at the door?”

Major took a breath. He really wasn’t sure he could. But he cared about Evan, too, and he knew how Liv must be feeling, especially after having given up her career as a surgeon, knowing intimately what her brother’s doctors must be facing. “Yes, I can.”


	15. Like I've Been There Before

Liv was staring at the door into the operating rooms, her face even whiter than normal. She had her arms wrapped around herself, and she was shaking. Her mother sat on one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs, holding a magazine up in front of her face, her body rigid. She was studiously ignoring Liv, even though it was obvious she wasn’t reading the magazine.

She stood up when she saw Major, though, holding out a hand to him. “Major. Thank you for coming.”

“Yeah, uh … sure. What—what happened?”

“Why don’t you ask your ex-fiance. She seems determined to unburden herself of everyone in her life. Except for him.” Disdain dripped from every word, Liv’s mother’s eyes cold as she watched Ravi fold Liv in his arms and hold her close. Liv didn’t take her eyes off the doors even then, craning her neck to look at them over Ravi’s shoulder.

“I … I’m sorry about Evan,” he said, the words feeling lame and inadequate. He had never seen either of the Moore women this upset. Evan’s injuries must be extensive. He went to Liv, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m here, Liv.”

Ravi let her go, muttering about getting some coffee, and left the two of them alone.

“Come on.” Major tugged at her shoulder, feeling the resistance, and then she relented and let him lead her to a chair. He sat across from her, holding her cold hands in his. “Tell me what happened.”

“He—he was at Meat Cute this morning.” Liv gave an anxious look at the doors again, but Major waited, and she turned to face him again. “There was a blast. Did Ravi tell you about the blast? Oh, Major, Clive thinks—Clive thinks you were involved, we need to talk about—“

“Later,” he said gently. “Tell me about Evan.”

“So many wounds. So much shrapnel.” Someone walked through the doors, Liv’s head whipping around at the sound, but it was a nurse in clean scrubs who went by them without glancing up. “I know her. She’s good. I wish she—“ Liv’s face twisted with pain, and Major knew she was wishing she was in there. Liv always had to be involved when the chips were down, to do it herself and see that it was done right. Not that they would have let her operate on her own brother, even if none of the rest of it had happened.

“He’s in surgery?”

Liv nodded. “They took him in … when? I don’t know. Long. Too long. He needed—he needed blood. We have the same blood type, so they asked me. They asked me to save my brother and I couldn’t even do that.” Her face crumpled and tears welled in her eyes, rolling down her cheeks.

Part of Major was surprised a zombie could cry so easily, another part wondered why she couldn’t give blood—Oh. Zombie. He felt a flash of bitterness that she had been so willing to turn him into a member of the undead, but wouldn’t go so far for her own brother, but he swallowed it. 

Or thought he had. Even distraught, Liv could read him. She leaned in closer to him and hissed, “I would have, Major. In a heartbeat. But how? He’s here, in the hospital. People would have seen. I couldn’t let them type my blood, or even take my blood pressure, because they would have known. I’d have been in quarantine. Or worse. I—there was nothing I could do that wouldn’t have put me in even greater danger than he is.”

Listening to her, hearing the thought process that was her normal now, Major understood far better than he had before what her life was like. “I get it.” He squeezed her hands more tightly.

“There was another doctor, he had Evan’s type, and he— So Evan has blood now. But … they’ve been in there too long …” Liv’s voice trailed off as her head turned toward the doors again.

Ravi came back with a cup of coffee in each hand. He handed one to Major, and put one firmly in Liv’s free hand. “Drink that,” he said sternly. “Doctor’s orders.”

“I used to be a doctor,” Liv said in a distant voice, her eyes still on the doors.

“Fine, then, your boss’s orders. Drink that, or you’re fired.”

Liv rolled her eyes, but she took a sip. She didn’t even grimace at the taste. Of course, at one point she’d been used to the terrible hospital coffee, practically lived on it.

Ravi settled into the chair next to Major.

“No coffee for you?” Major asked.

“I have strict rules about bean quallty.”

“Snob.”

“Connoisseur.”

Liv took another sip of the coffee, frowning at them both over the rim of the cup. “You can’t be here. If Clive comes in, he’ll want to ask Major questions, maybe even bring him in.”

“I’m staying.”

“We both are,” Ravi added. “If Clive comes in, you’ll tell him—“

“We’ll tell him the truth," Liv said. "That you were at my place. He can’t doubt me. I’m his partner.”

“Okay.” Major hoped this didn’t involve pretending to be back together. He still couldn’t look at her without remembering the pain and longing and heartache he had felt all these months, without remembering that she had let him think he was crazy rather than tell him the truth about herself.

Ravi looked skeptical and optimistic at the same time. Whether that was a doubt about the strength of Clive’s trust in Liv or a doubt about Clive’s overall ability to track down a lead, Major didn’t know. He hoped it was the second, for his own sake if not that of the murder victims of Seattle. For now, he wasn’t going to worry about that. For now, he was going to sit here and hold Liv’s hand for as long as she needed him.


	16. Just Need a Little Time

Major studied the short, polite, cold form letter email response from his latest resume.

“No again, huh?” Ravi asked.

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.” Major frowned at the gym bag next to the door. “I guess that’s it—I guess I’m a personal trainer now. Hey, at least I had something to fall back on, right?”

“Right.” Ravi sipped his coffee, keeping any further thoughts to himself. They had already been through the cheerleader phase, the tough love phase, the ice cream and romantic movies phase—and what a weird night that had been—and had now entered the “life sucks, what’re you gonna do?” silent phase.

Major slapped the computer closed. “I suppose I should hit the gym. Wouldn’t want the pecs to sag. Nothing’s worse than a hypocritical trainer.”

His roommate nodded, taking another conversation-deadening sip of coffee.

Before Major could say anything further, give vent to any of the complaints constricting his chest and making it hard to breathe, there was a knock on the door, and then it opened. Major winced. Liv. She had taken to dropping by before her shift to drive over with Ravi, and Major hadn’t had the heart to say anything to her. Her brother and her mother had completely frozen her out after her inability to give him blood at the hospital. With Peyton still missing and Major unable to get past his knowledge of what she was and what she had done, that left Ravi as her sole source of comfort. And since Ravi was still nursing a pretty deep hurt at Peyton having abandoned him when she ran out on Liv, the two of them had been good for each other. But Major was about at the end of his rope with her constant presence. Liv wasn’t the only one who had lost everything she had ever cared about or wanted to be, and most of his woes were her fault to begin with. He was trying to be polite for her sake, but it was a greater strain all the time.

She marched into the kitchen with a cheerful smile. “Good morning! The sun is shining, the grass is green, and it’s a beautiful day. So draw a smile on that gloomy face.”

“Let me guess,” Major said, “kindergarten teacher?”

“Art therapist.”

The word therapist hit him in a particularly vulnerable spot after this morning’s email. “You mind taking your glitter and rainbows somewhere else? You’re harshing my downer.”

“Oh, does someone need their frown turned upside down?”

“Liv,” Ravi said warningly.

Major could see her trying to fight the influence of the brain, and the fact that this was their reality now pissed him off even further, beyond his capacity to restrain himself. “Look, Liv, you have to stop doing this. You can’t just come around here and fling your daily dose of crazy around and pretend it’s normal. This is not normal, it’s not okay, and I really don’t want to deal with it.”

The smile faded in a childlike slow bewilderment from her face, and she stepped back from him. “Oh. I’m sorry. I thought—after the hospital, and you were—“

“I know what you thought. I’ve known Evan since he was in grade school; I care about him, too. Of course I would be there for you then. But now—Liv, I can’t have you here. I can’t live with this reminder every day of what you are, of what you almost turned me into, of what this has all cost me. You have to stop coming here.”

“Major—“ Her eyes had filled with tears, and he hated what he was doing to her. He wanted to think about what this had all been like for her, he wanted to feel for her, but his career was over, his hopes for his own life destroyed, and that all came from that night at the boat party. That the initial scratch hadn’t been her fault didn’t matter. The way she had handled it, how she had shut him out and lied to him and broken his heart, that was on her, and he couldn’t get past that. “I’m sorry,” she said with that earnest-Liv look he wished didn’t still have the power to make his heart turn over. “I’m so sorry! If I had it to do over again—but I was so afraid of what would happen to you, that you would get hurt or—“

“Or die? Well, congratulations, you took care of that. Like you took care of everything else. All on your own, no consultation needed. You let me know when the god brains you ate wear off.”

“I wasn’t trying to play god! I was trying to protect you!”

At some point, Ravi had disappeared from the kitchen, not wanting to be a part of this conversation. Major couldn’t blame him—he didn’t want to be a part of it, either. “I know what you think you were doing. But at the end, all you did was treat me like a child, and ruin my life into the bargain.” He looked down at her, knowing that he was still in love with her, and that his anger came from the deep hurt and the equally deep love that were still fighting each other in his heart. “Liv, maybe … maybe someday I can get past this. I’ll try. But you have to give me time, and space, and let me figure out what my life is going to be on my own.”

She blinked back the tears, clearing her throat. “I’ll—I’ll try. And if you need to talk …”

“I’ll let you know,” he said, politely but firmly, hoping she understood that if he ever did need to talk, it wouldn’t be anytime soon.

“Okay.” Liv hesitated in the doorway, clearly wanting to try again, not wanting to give up. But Ravi appeared behind her, his hand closing gently on her shoulder. 

“We’re going to be late. Clive wanted to interview the boyfriend today, remember?”

“What? Oh. Yes. Of course, I—“ She froze for what seemed like an endless time, before gasping for breath like something had struck her. “Ravi! I saw him. They were arguing about the affair she was having. There’s another boyfriend!”

“We should tell Clive. You can call him from the car.” Over Liv’s shoulder, Ravi met Major’s eyes. “See you later.”

“Yeah.” Major watched as Liv followed Ravi to the door. She gave him a last glance, clearly hoping for some kind of signal, so he turned away, his back to the door, and got down a cereal bowl, making an extra clatter on the counter as he set it down. He heard the door close behind them both and let go of a breath he hadn’t known he was holding, leaning his forehead against the cabinet door. Tears prickled at the back of his eyes. He wished for nothing more than to chase her down, to hold her close, to talk to her about everything and let her make it all right, the way she used to. But those times were gone now, and he was going to have to pull up his big boy Underoos and figure it all out himself now.


	17. A Devil to Pay

Major had been surprised and pleased to be called in by the head of Max Rager as a potential trainer. He hadn’t been doing this long, and he didn’t love the job, but that would be a big account, a lot of money, and would certainly boost his reputation. Maybe even enough to save something for the future and figure out what he wanted to do long-term.

He was led into the office by a hot redhead who looked him over with quite a bit of interest. Major wasn’t sure he was ready for hot redheads, but he appreciated the look.

Vaughn du Clark didn’t seem like the monster Liv had depicted him as. Maybe a little crazy, but a lot of guys at the head of companies were. Thinking outside the box and all, Major assumed. But then it quickly became clear that Major wasn’t here because du Clark wanted a trainer. He was here because, somehow, du Clark knew that Major knew about the zombies.

“Zombies, sir?”

“Don’t play dumb with me. I know what you did at Meat Cute.”

“Meat Cute? Oh, that. Drug dealers, so they tell me.” Major tried to keep his face open and guileless. He used to be good at that look; he wasn’t so sure about it anymore.

“Look, Major, let’s not try to evade the topic. You know, I know, and I know you know. And something has to be done to stop it.” 

“Stop it? How?”

“I’m glad you asked. Because this is what I have in mind. You, out there, hunting zombies … and taking them out of our collective hair.” He held up a hand when Major might have objected. “I know what you’re going to say, but save it. Zombies don’t deserve our mercy, so just put that thought out of your head.” The redhead was standing next to him looking bored, but du Clark was all in, furrowing his brow as he muttered to himself, “How to explain? I love submarine movies. Big fan. And there’s always this moment. It’s the moment where the sub is torpedoed and the compartment is flooding and the captain’s got to give the order to seal it up, even though he knows that there are men still alive in there. Cut to the sailor who receives that order, tears in his eyes, closing that hatch on his comrades.” du Clark mimed closing a hatch, his face twisted with the imagined grief of the sailor. Then he dropped his hands and met Major’s eyes squarely. “The man who closes that hatch is a hero, isn’t he? But we’re both doing what needs to be done. We are saving lives. There are zombies living among us. And they are feasting on human brains. Where do they get these brains? Who knows? But don’t you think it’s a good idea to put an end to it?”

The redhead walked across the room to sit in the chair next to Major’s. He had to admit, she smelled pretty damn good.

du Clark went on, “Sure, they look like us, they sound like us, but if you think of them as brain-eating atomic bombs, you sleep like a baby.”

“You’ve got the wrong man for the job,” Major said. He wasn’t in favor of zombies, but between Liv and his client the nice family man who happened to be a zombie, and no doubt other perfectly nice people out there like Lowell, Liv’s ex, he didn’t think they needed to be killed. There had been a cure once—he knew that better than anyone. Surely there would be a cure again.

“Oh, I have the only man for the job.” 

du Clark punched the button on a recording device, and Ravi’s voice came through it. “More than once now, Major’s run into people and he’s just utterly convinced they’re zombies. His heart starts racing, his hair stands on end. He’s a human zombie detector.”

Clicking the recording device off, du Clark grinned wildly across the desk at Major. “See? You’re singularly qualified.” Major kept silent, wanting to know how they had recorded Ravi and who he had been talking to, but not wanting to give du Clark the satisfaction of asking. But du Clark wasn’t waiting for him to answer anyway. He went on, “Now, we’ve learned a few things about zombies. Weird as it sounds, they can’t get enough of spicy food.” du Clark and the redhead both laughed at that, but Major didn’t find it funny. He remembered all too clearly what it had felt like to only want brains. “And in order to blend in, they require pretty regular tanning and hair dyeing. Our tech boys have developed an algorithm which scans credit card statements for charges which fit this zombie profile.” He pushed a computer printout across the desk to Major. “Those 322 people are suspected zombies. Your mission? Determine which ones are the real deal, and close that hatch on them.” He made the motion with his hands again.

“Kill them,” Major clarified.

du Clark looked as though he wanted to find a euphemism, or as if he was having second thoughts, but the expression disappeared from his face too quickly for his hesitation to have been real. “Yes. After all, aren’t you the greatest zombie killer alive?”

Damn Meat Cute. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time, but it had only made everything worse. Major wasn’t having any of this. He got up, heading for the glass doors of du Clark’s office.

“Forgot your list,” du Clark called after him.

“I’m not doing this.”

But Major stopped stockstill when another voice came from du Clark’s recorder. Liv. They had taped her call to him about Clive’s interest in Major’s Meat Cute alibi. They were tapping her phone. That must have been where they got the recording of Ravi, too. That was how they knew about Meat Cute at all. Unable to stop himself, Major turned around, facing du Clark and his redhead.

du Clark put the recorder down and said, “Got you over a barrel, big guy. Five murders, that’s a lot of years in the pokey.”

Major gave that one a brief thought, but really, did it matter if he went to jail? Not really. Not anymore. “Do what you gotta do.” He turned to leave again.

du Clark’s voice came after him. “Major, we are doing our civic duty here!” He came around the desk toward Major, his voice dropping as he admitted, “We played a big part in creating this problem, and we are going to be very aggressive in cleaning it up.” When Major didn’t reply, he went on, “We do know of one zombie, Liv Moore. We don’t have to start with her, but … we gotta start somewhere.”

No matter what had happened between them, the lies she had told, the secrets she’d kept, the many ways she’d broken his heart, Major couldn’t let anything happen to Liv. And du Clark knew it, that was plain to see. “Fine. Give me the damn list.”

“See, I knew you’d see it my way. You report in regularly, Major.” du Clark slapped his stomach. “After all, I really do need a trainer.”

Grabbing the paper from him, Major muttered, “Yeah, whatever,” and left the office.

The redhead followed him. “Don’t mess around with this. He wants results, and he wants them now, and he’ll make you regret it if you don’t provide them.”

It was pure bad luck that his client, the family man, was on the top of Max Rager’s list. Hating himself with every step, Major kidnapped him, wrapped him in plastic, shot him in the head, and dumped him in the river. Hopefully that would be enough to buy him some time … but what was he going to do? Vaughn du Clark had Major right where he wanted him, and that wasn’t going to change. From counselor to troubled teens to killer for hire. Not really a step up, he thought gloomily.


	18. Just a Lost Soul

Major hadn’t expected to sleep like a baby the night after he’d killed a man. He’d expected to toss and turn and beat himself up and try to find ways to get out of the devil’s bargain he had implicitly made with Vaughn du Clark. But his mind and body had entirely shut down. The last thing he remembered was throwing that poor man’s body off the bridge—and then he woke up in bed. He hoped he hadn’t done anything else in between, but it was hard to work up the energy to care, really. This was who he was, now. Personal trainer, zombie detector, hired killer. That he had been hired to do exactly what he had been so proud of doing at Meat Cute no longer seemed to matter. The Meat Cute zombies had been thugs. Murderers, drug dealers, criminals. He’d been doing society a favor.

But now he knew that zombies were— _Liv_ —people. Just like anyone else. This man had been a loving father, a good man … who happened to eat brains. It probably hadn’t even been his fault that he’d been turned into a zombie. Which didn’t make him any less dead now.

His morning routine was set in his brain. He didn’t even have to think about it. Get up, get dressed, brush teeth, fix hair. Somehow he made it through that day, pretending to be just like everyone else. Pretending he hadn’t killed a man last night, pretending he wasn’t a murderer. Was a murderer worse than a liar? Was he worse than Liv now? Did he owe her an apology, did he have to forgive her? It was her fault he was in this mess, after all. It was to keep du Clark from killing her that he had taken a family’s father and shot him through the head and dumped him in the river. Not that Liv knew any of that, of course, and not that he could tell her. She would try to fix things, she would go after Vaughn du Clark herself and get herself killed.

No, he couldn’t tell Liv. Or Ravi, either. 

All he could do was make it through the day, one foot in front of the other.

At home the second night, pouring a sad bowl of cereal because he couldn’t face cooking or ordering or going out, he turned on the news. He had avoided it all the first day, the day of Major becoming a killer, not wanting to know, but now he couldn’t stay away. He had to see what the news was saying. Part of him half-hoped he would be caught. It would serve du Clark right, for one thing, and prison at least would have to be easier. Three hots and a cot, right? A workout room, a prison job … all his questions about what to do with his life answered. Maybe he should turn himself in, lie about the zombieism and just say he’d gone crazy. With his history, they’d believe him.

The two kids were on the news. Their father was considered missing, his body not found yet. They were devastated, Major could tell, comparing the tear-filled face of the girl with the cheerfulness he had seen the day they’d met. Oh, god, did he have to go express his condolences? He’d only been there once in his capacity as personal trainer. Surely that would be inappropriate. It had to be inappropriate because there was no way Major could do it.

Looking down at the bowl, the mush in the white liquid, Major felt nauseous. He poured the whole thing down the drain, taking a dark satisfaction in the grind of the disposal cleaning it all up. He left the news running and went to his room.

And, of course, tonight was the night he lay awake staring at the ceiling, going back over every moment in his head, wishing he could take it all back. All of it. Before Meat Cute. Why couldn’t he have left well enough alone? Jerome had been a street kid, disappearing was what they did. If only Major had never gone after him, he would never have known.

But he wouldn’t have been a good counselor if he’d let Jerome go, and once he’d committed to finding Jerome, that trail led straight to Julian and Meat Cute and … Liv being a zombie.

If he had never sent her to that stupid boat party, he thought for at least the ten millionth time. If he had kept her home and they’d watched something stupid on TV, made love on the couch, and gone to sleep half-dressed in the living room, none of this would have happened.

Except that Blaine would still have been a zombie, and Jerome would still have disappeared, and Liv would have been in surgery, not knowing anything about it—and he would be dead. Would he rather be dead, Liv his widow? 

It was a tough call.


	19. There's You

The Utopium had been a brilliant idea. Major felt so good, like he had no problems at all. The music was pounding in his blood, his body moving to it like it was what he was born to do. Nothing else mattered but what he was doing right now, how good it felt, and keeping that going as long as possible. 

As soon as there was a lull in the music, he headed off to do just that—get more. And more. Maybe enough so he never had to come down.

How much he’d had, or when the euphoria receded and left him hanging over a toilet puking his guts out, he didn’t know. But when he came back to himself, back to the reality of the unfortunate Major Lilywhite and the wreck of what had once been his life, he was on the floor of a pretty gross and smelly men’s room, and Liv was there, picking him up, holding him close, saying, “I got you, bro.”

Sure she did. Because she loved him. In his current state, that was really all that mattered. Liv loved him, he loved Liv. They were meant to be. He rested his head against her white hair and let her lead him through the club. He didn’t really have the energy for much beyond that, anyway. The Utopium had ebbed from his system and he felt weak and sick and sad and awful. 

Somehow Liv got both Major and Ravi into a taxi. Difficult task when Major collapsed any time she wasn’t directly holding him up, and Ravi wandered off looking for more fun any time she wasn’t physically hanging on to him. Major couldn’t quite summon up the energy to help her, but he tried. Or he thought he did. He was kind of in and out, and most of his ‘in’ time was spent trying not to puke.

As the taxi pulled away, Liv’s phone started making noises. Someone was texting her. She was texting someone. But she didn’t know that Vaughn du Clark knew everything that went on on her phone. She couldn’t know that, because if she knew about Vaughn du Clark she would know about Major, and he didn’t want her to know about him. But she couldn’t keep using her phone, either, because it wasn’t safe. Major reached out and took it from her hands and threw it out the window of the taxi, leaning his head back against the seat with a sigh of relief when he heard it clatter on the ground.

“What the hell?”

“They can hear you, and they’re … always listening.” She had to know, to protect herself. 

But she didn’t have time to ask, because Ravi was still drunk and high, babbling on about something, and Major was lost in a sea of nausea and misery. He closed his eyes and let blackness take him.

Once Liv had him home, and he had puked a couple more times, he felt a little bit more like himself. His head was still aching and foggy and everything seemed very far away, but it was clearing. He leaned his head back against the wall of the bathroom, looking at Liv, who was preparing emergency supplies at the sink. He’d never seen that dress before. It was yellow, and tight, and looked pretty good on her. Major squinted at it. There was some kind of black pattern on it, with words.

“Am I that messed up, or are you wearing police tape?”

She almost smiled. “You’re that messed up.”

Of course, she really was wearing police tape. His Liv would never have worn police tape in public. He hoped wherever she’d been, she’d been having a good time. Not as good a time as he had been, because on the Utopium, he’d been happier, higher, than he’d ever been in his life. But at least the kind of good time people who wore police tape as dresses had.

Liv started placing things on top of the toilet tank for him. “Aspirin. Water. Electrolytes. And I thought paper towels were a good idea. You’re not gonna want to, but you should try to drink lots of fliuds.”

If he closed his eyes and pretended hard enough, he could believe they were married, that everything was the way it was supposed to have been, and that she was taking care of him because he had the flu. He wished for that reality, but it was gone, vanished into the mist that filled his head. He wanted that mist back, wanted to be able to pretend again. 

Major looked up at Liv, wanting her to pretend with him, but she stood there in that yellow police tape that she shouldn’t have been wearing and looked uncomfortable, and he couldn’t pretend with her.

“I’ll leave you to it,” she said softly. “Good luck.”

But he couldn’t let her go. Right now, she was all he had to hold on to. He didn’t want to ask, didn’t want anything from her, not after the mess she had made, but— “Can you stay?”

He wasn’t sure she would, but she stopped, and turned around, and looked at him, and then sank down onto the floor near him with her back to the wall. The tile floor must have been cold against her bare legs, but she didn’t say anything about that. Did zombies feel cold? Major didn’t want to know, didn’t want to care. He just wanted to be near her. 

He let himself tip over, lying on his side on the bathroom floor with his head on her lap. After a moment, one of her hands settled on his shoulder, and the other one stroked through his hair, just the way she used to do. Major closed his eyes, feeling safe for the first time in a long time. He wanted her to know that she was safe, too, and would be as long as he had anything to say about it. “I won’t let anything happen to you,” he told her.

“And I won’t shave your eyebrows,” Liv promised.

It didn’t matter that she was saying it because she had eaten someone’s brain and that had temporarily taken over her personality. It was the kind of ridiculous thing they used to say to one another. It felt familiar. Like home. And with her here, Major closed his eyes and surrendered to sleep for the first time since he’d become a killer.


	20. Here He Comes

The Utopium made the days go faster. Everything seemed far away, like someone else was behind his eyes watching as this sad, pathetic Major Lilywhite person went through his day. It wasn’t really him at all, which was comforting. He spent hours in the Max Rager gym, where it was quiet and private, feeling like he was at least getting something back out of this deal with the devil he had been forced to make.

His night on the bathroom floor with Liv was just another postcard in time, a brief flash of another Major. Nothing more. There was no future there. It was forgotten.

Major took pleasure in the workouts, the Utopium increasing the endorphin rush. It was about the only thing left that made him happy. But the fly in the soup was the presence of Vaughn du Clark’s secretary, Rita, who liked to drop by in the middle of a set. He wasn’t sure whether she wanted to watch or torment him, or if she got off doing a little of both. Either way, she annoyed him—as much because she was hot and smart and ruthless as because she was genuinely annoying. And he didn’t like it.

Today she had come, as she usually did, to hassle him about the list of people he was supposed to kill. Well, she could keep hassling him for all Major cared. He had already killed one person for them. That was enough for a lifetime. He had decided to just lie to them and tell them none of the people on the list were actually zombies, see how far that got him.

From the look on Rita’s face when he told her he’d eliminated a name, it wasn’t going to be far at all. That’s when she told him that du Clark had initially planned to kill everyone on the list, including potentially their families and friends. It was hard to see murder, especially serial murder on such a scale as that list, as a benefit, but that’s how Rita framed it for him. And underneath it, the implied threat—if he didn’t get moving on the list, du Clark would. As Rita put it, “Does a patient man invent an energy drink?” Apparently not.

He was going to need a lot more Utopium.

Picking a name at random, Major took a hit and went on the hunt that night, catching the guy in the elevator, feeling the prickle in his skin and the racing heart that said this was a zombie. He had tried to forget the name, not wanting to know. It was easier if he could pretend they weren’t people. Just more evil zombies. Like a movie. Not like Liv. No.

He waited outside the zombie’s apartment building until it came out, going for a jog. 

It had a dog.

Zombies didn’t have dogs. Evil things didn’t have dogs. Dogs didn’t like evil things. This couldn’t be evil if it had a dog.

But Major had to kill it anyway, so it had to be evil, and he had to believe he was saving the dog. That was the only way he could come up behind the monster while it was jogging and inject the drug into its neck that would drop it in its tracks. He would bring the dog along, care for him, until he could decide what to do with him.

The zombie woke up on their way to its final destination, calling out from the trunk, pretending to be human, but Major knew better. So did the dog. He reached out and yanked the tag off the dog’s collar and threw it out the window of the car, and then he turned up the volume on the music. “Voices Carry.” Good song, sang the Utopium in his brain. It drowned out the voice carrying from the trunk, which wasn’t real anyway. So it didn’t matter when Major hauled it out of the car and shot it in the head and dropped it in the river. It didn’t matter in the least.

He left the dog at home. He didn’t know what to tell Ravi, so he didn’t tell him anything. And he went back to Max Rager with a bag full of Utopium, ready to hit his circuit and forget what he had done last night. What someone else had done. That couldn’t have been him. This couldn’t be him.

But if it wasn’t him, what was he doing standing frozen in the Max Rager lobby staring at someone who looked like Liv would look if she fell out of a snooty catalog while Vaughn du Clark taunted him? Because if that was Liv, he was Major, and if he was Major, then he was a killer. 

Of course, it wasn’t really Liv. The feelings were hers, the hurt because he had been avoiding her, the eyes were hurt, the anger because she had found him here, of all places. But the words, the hair, the look … those were all zombie. 

With Liv came Clive, Clive who hadn’t yet given up on his idea—his totally correct idea, of course—that Major had something to do with the murders at Meat Cute. It crossed Major’s mind to confess, to just tell the truth and go to jail and get it all over with. But Vaughn du Clark was behind Clive, smirking, and Major knew what would happen if he did anything to extricate himself from this nightmare. Liv would die. All of Liv would die, not just the part that was a zombie. And Major could no sooner let that happen than he could stop breathing.

So he let Liv yell at him, and he reminded her that he had no career any longer, and she slapped him, and then she was gone and he was alone here at Max Rager with a crazy man and a hot redhead who looked at him with smoldering eyes … and a bag full of Utopium to make it all better.

He had just taken another hit when the redhead walked into the empty workout room. Tight pants, loose tanktop over something with lots of tight straps, slow yoga moves, twisting her body in front of him. He should leave, he told himself. This was going nowhere good.

But she came up behind him as he was picking up his bag, and the Utopium was pumping through his veins, and why shouldn’t he get something good out of this deal, anyway, and he kissed her. More than kissed her. He let himself go completely and explored every hungry inch of that well-toned body. And he didn’t feel bad about it. No. Not at all. It was the Utopium, after all, and no less than he deserved.

He made it home later, feeling dirty and defeated as the Utopium receded from his system. There was one more hit in his room that had to hold him until he could get more tomorrow, and he wanted to save it for bedtime to be able to sleep and not lie awake long into the night trying to imagine how he could fix his life. So he was in no mood for Liv when the doorbell rang, and he was already practicing his cutting words when he threw it open—and saw Peyton Charles standing there.

“Hi, Major.”

“Peyton? Do you still live here?”

She winced. “I guess I deserve that. I’m back, ready to get back to work, thought I’d drop by and see how you are.”

“You mean how Ravi is.”

“Yeah, I deserved that, too.” The dog came trotting out from behind Major and she bent to pet it. “When did you get a dog?”

“While you were gone. Coming in?”

She stood up, giving him a wary look. “Sure, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all.”

“You kind of seem to mind.”

“Sorry, I’m just trying to … It’s been a long few months.” He forced a smile. “I’m just a little grumpy, don’t mind me.”

“I’ll try not to.” She managed a smile, too, tentative and hesitant, and they settled into a circuit of uncomfortable questions and answers in which Peyton didn’t mention Liv and Major didn’t mention Ravi, and he tried not to think of the last hit of Utopium upstairs in his room. 

Eventually Ravi came home, and the moment they saw each other was exactly as awkward as Major had imagined … and he felt like exactly as much of a third wheel. And with some relief he was able to excuse himself and leave them to it—maybe he shouldn’t have? Maybe a good friend would have stayed and backed up Ravi and supported Peyton? But he wasn’t much of a friend right now, was he? No. He was a killer, and killers didn’t take care of people—and he climbed the stairs to his room and got into bed and took the last hit and drifted away into a dream world where none of this was really happening and from which he wished he never had to wake.


	21. When You Learn to Let Go

Rita rolled over, a graceful movement. She must have been a dancer at some point, Major thought, unstirred by her beauty. “Sure you don’t want to go again?”

“Nah, I’m good.” He pulled his shirt on, getting up to hunt for his shoes.

“You know, you could stay. You’re always out of here so fast.”

“What, you want to cuddle?”

She laughed. “Hardly. But every once in a while you could act like you actually want to be here.”

“I don’t.”

“I know.” She sat up, pulling the covers up with her, looking at him with interest. “Who is it, the girl you pretend I am? The ex-fiance? Or someone else?”

Major hid his face, bending over to tie his shoelaces. No, he never pretended Rita was Liv. Too much complexity there. Mostly, he pretended _he_ was someone else. He wasn’t sure who, but anyone had to be better than being Major Lilywhite. “There’s no one.”

“Aw, so all that passion is for lil ol’ me?”

He straightened, turning to look at her. “Rita, the only person I hate more than you is myself.”

She almost looked like that hurt, but the moment passed, and she shrugged. “Works for me. Hate’s hotter, anyway.”

“You would think that.” She was all kinds of wrong—he remembered what it was like to make love, to be in love, and nothing could be hotter, or better, than that. 

“See you next time.”

“There won’t be a next time.” He closed the door forcefully, trying to make the point, but he could still hear her laughing. They both knew there would be a next time. He dug in the pocket of his bag for a vial of Utopium and snorted it, trying to erase the memories and forget … everything.

Later that night, he was sprawled out on the couch, the dog, who he refused to call Minor, resting against him, when the picture of the dog’s missing owner—and the dog—came on the TV. Was there nowhere he could go to avoid being reminded of the monster he was becoming? He dug in his pocket for another vial, chasing the oblivion that came when the Utopium hit his system. But before it could take effect, the doorbell rang.

Recent months had taught him that nothing good happened when the doorbell rang. He really didn’t want to deal with it. If he sat here long enough, whoever it was would go away. Except that they didn’t, and the doorbell rang again.

Major heaved himself off the couch, the Utopium buzzing in his head, but annoyingly, not pleasantly. He was irritated even before he opened the door and saw Liv standing there on the porch. 

“Hey,” she said, putting immediately to rest the chance that she might have been here looking for Ravi, or Peyton.

“Twice in a week.” God, he was tired.

“I’m sorry, I know you want space. That’s kind of why I’m here. I … realized something tonight. I just—need to say it.”

“Okay.” He’d hear her out, since she insisted on it, but he was damned if he was inviting her in. She couldn’t come in without an invitation, right? No, that was vampires.

“From the moment that I met you, I knew that we were meant to be together.”

She had practiced this speech, he could tell. But it was hard not to follow the train of her thought back to that sunny afternoon when they’d met, the instant connection, the electric way he had felt just being around her. 

Liv went on, while Major tried to fight the rush of memory. “I was sure of it, it was like fate. But that was before I had witnessed a mass murder. Before I had eaten fresh brain. Before I had lied to you, or let you put yourself in a mental hospital— It was before I’d watched you die.” She took a deep breath. “And it was before all this cruelty was directed back at me. Now, I don’t think space can fix what’s wrong with us. We’re a dream that’s dead.”

All his dreams were dead. Liv was the zombie, but Major was the one who was dead. His body just didn’t know it.

She hadn’t finished. Would she ever finish?

“I doubt that I will ever stop loving you. But it’s over now. I gotta let you go. Completely. Forever.”

The irony of her coming over here, when he had told her not to so many times, to tell him she was letting him go, was so galling, he wanted … He was too tired to want anything. He just wanted her gone. “Perfect,” he said. “Thanks for stopping by.” And he shut the door in her face. She wanted him gone? He was already long gone.

But he hadn’t even made it to the kitchen before the door swung open again and Liv charged in. “Hey. Stop. I’m coming here like an adult trying to talk to you. How can you be this cold to me?”

“Who exactly am I being cold to? Huh? Whose brain did you eat this week?”

“This is all me. And in case you’ve forgotten, I didn’t ask for this! I went to a party, because you told me I should. I woke up on a shore craving brains. Next thing I know I’ve cracked this corpse’s head open.” 

He hated hearing about this. He’d pushed aside all the guilt he felt for making her go to that party. He just wanted to forget it. Forget her. Why couldn’t she leave him alone? Why did she have to come here and make him feel things?

“How could I bring that home to you?” she asked. “How could I be your wife? I had become a monster.”

She wasn’t the only monster. She wasn’t the only one who couldn’t bring things home to the people they cared about. He saw Vaughn du Clark, he saw the dog’s owner, he saw Rita. He was a monster, only he had done it by choice.

“I was confused, and I was dangerous. Every decision that I made last year, I made trying to protect you from my new reality.”

Well, wasn’t that just the way it went. He had made a few decisions to protect her, too, things he couldn’t tell her about. 

Liv went on, “I know, in your eyes, I’ve screwed up badly somewhere along the line, but I did the best I could.”

She had to go. He couldn’t have her here, telling him these things, making him want to understand her and forgive her. Not now. Not … ever, not anymore. “You know, I just— I keep asking you for some space, and every time I turn around, here you are.”

Her eyes widened, and he could see the faint shine of tears in them. Did zombies cry? He guessed they did.

They stared at each other, neither willing to give in, to forgive, and Major, at least, just wanting to forget. At last, Liv backed away, then turned around and walked slowly to the door, her shoulders a defeated slump. She stopped to look back at him. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?” Like he didn’t know. But he didn’t want to know, so he refused to know.

“Making me doubt the only thing in my life that I was sure was real.”

Well, nothing in Major’s life was real anymore. Why should hers be any different? He didn’t answer her, and finally she left, leaving Major standing alone in a house built of broken dreams.


	22. Another Word for You

He lost himself, then, deep in video games and oblivion, far gone in a world where there was no Major Lilywhite, no broken engagement, no broken anything. It was nice. Ravi coming in and yelling about the missing dog disturbed the fog a little, but mostly it just hung around him, hazy and comforting. It was a relief when they didn’t find the dog, one less thing to worry about, one less reminder of … everything.

It was startling to come in the next day and find Ravi there with Minor, and to find out that the dog had returned to the park where Major had kidnapped his owner. It was—he didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to look in Ravi’s face and see the anger and the disgust he saw there. He pushed it off with bluster and promises, but he didn’t really want to get himself together, the way he’d promised to do. He didn't want to wake up and be Major Lilywhite again. He wanted—he wanted the fog back.

He left the house, heading downtown to the tunnels where the Utopium dealers hung out. He had to have more, to make everything go away again. He couldn’t live with it all. No one could be expected to live with it all, he told himself.

In the tunnel, over a burning oil drum, he asked for the drugs. It had been weird the first couple of times, but now it was just what he did. 

The dealer squinted at him, pulling his headphones off his head, the band tangled in his curly blond hair, and squinted some more. “Major?”

Major stared back at him, trying to place the face.

Laughing, the dealer called over his shoulder to his friend. “Get me a couple brain-busters on the house for this cat. We go way back to Helton Shelter.”

Helton? This kid … Yes, he remembered him now. So, he had failed to get another boy off the street. Way to go, Major. 

“This dude was tryin’ to keep us _off_ drugs.” The dealer was still laughing, clapping Major on the arm like now they were the same. Well, hell, they were the same. 

Major took the Utopium, staring at it like he had never seen it before. The dealer’s laugh was ringing in his ears as he walked out of the tunnel.

His phone buzzed. It was Rita. Booty call. He should probably go. What else did he have to do?

Then he put the phone back in his pocket. What the hell was he doing? Drugs? Sex with someone he despised? Giving up on his career, his life—everything? You would think after all the boys he had counseled not to do exactly all of that, he would know better. He would be stronger. But he wasn’t strong, not anymore. He hadn’t been strong since he lost Liv. Oh, he had tried to move on, but … Nothing was right without her.

Which was no excuse. How could he have fallen so low that he could look one of his own boys in the face and ask him for drugs? That was not any Major Lilywhite that he recognized. And he knew now that after all the hiding, all the wrapping himself in fog and pretending not to be there, he wanted to be Major Lilywhite. He wanted … well, if he couldn’t have Liv, he wanted his memories of her. If he couldn’t have his career, he wanted to be the person who had wanted to help people, not this ... waste of space he had become. 

Could he hunt zombies for Vaughn du Clark and still help people? He felt a chill shake him, the craving for the Utopium in his pocket. No, not like this. Not this guy. This guy couldn’t find a way out of the box he was stuck in. But Major Lilywhite could.

And there was only one person out there who still knew who Major Lilywhite was, who still believed in him. He got in his car, driving there by sheer muscle memory, every instinct knowing where he was going.

He was almost too weary to stand by the time he knocked on her door. He didn’t know what he would do if she wasn’t there. Collapse, maybe. Fall down in a crumpled heap on the floor of the hallway. 

But she was there, standing there in front of him. His Liv. The only thing that made sense anymore.

The words came from him even before he knew what he meant to say. “I need help.”

And without a word, she reached for him, pulling him into her arms, as some part of him had known she would. He rested his head on her shoulder, feeling right for the first time in such a long, long time. She shifted her head to look at him, maybe to say something, and their lips met, soft and tender. They pulled back long enough to look at one another, and Major kissed her again, Liv responding eagerly. Like it should be. Like what had been missing all these months. Like everything setting itself right again. Like coming home.


	23. A Feeling Like This

It felt so good to be here in Liv’s arms again, kissing her. Major had forgotten how much he loved to kiss her, how sweet her mouth tasted. Who needed Utopium when you could have this?

Slowly, one lingering kiss at a time, they were moving through her apartment toward her room. Major was in no hurry. He wanted to make this last, take his time.

Liv broke away at last. “What are we doing?” she asked breathlessly.

It was the old Major, her Major, who answered. “Well, it’s hard to put a label on it just yet, but I’ll get back to you in a minute.” He kissed her again, loving the way she couldn’t help but kiss him back. She had missed this as much as he had.

Finding a convenient wall at hand, Major pressed her gently against it and kissed the side of her neck, finding the spot unerringly. He knew all her spots. He couldn’t wait to explore each of them again.

But Liv was finding her way back to reality. “We should stop.” He ignored her, kissing her ear, her head tilting aside to let him keep going, even as she continued, “We don’t know enough about how zombie is transferred. All this kissing.”

“I’ve been kissed by blonde Liv before. Still human,” he breathed, reaching for her mouth again. He didn’t want to stop. He had missed this, needed this, too much.

Liv put her hand over his mouth, pushing his head away. “But that wasn’t as prolonged and there were no tongues involved.” He reluctantly stopped trying to kiss her, but he held her there against him, not wanting to let her go. “Do you have any open sores in your mouth?” she asked.

“Sexy.”

“How hard have you been brushing your teeth?”

“So hard.” She wasn’t really going to stop, was she? 

She was. “That’s it. Kissing moratorium until we’re sure I didn’t just turn you into a zombie.”

But this was as close as he had been to happy as long as he could remember, and he wasn’t giving it up so easily. “So we’re going the _Pretty Woman_ no kissing on the mouth route? I’m down.”

Liv rolled her eyes. “Oh, my god, horny boys are the worst. When all your blood returns to the normal locations in your body, you’re gonna care whether that makeout session’s left you living, or living dead.”

He supposed she had a point. 

She stepped away, reaching a hand up to brush his hair back, the gesture so familiar and comforting that he closed his eyes, feeling a wave of exhaustion roll over him. “Besides,” Liv said, “you look like you’re barely on your feet. Better hold on to your energy, anyway.” Her eyes studied his face. “You look awful. Major? What’s been going on?”

“I—“ He started to tell her about Ravi’s experiment with the Utopium, but this wasn’t Ravi’s fault, and he didn’t want her blaming Ravi for his failings. “Utopium.”

“Utopium? Oh, Major.”

He had been so afraid to tell her—to tell her any of it, really, how poorly he was coping with losing her and losing his whole life, and the terrible things he had done to make it seem bearable, afraid to see in her eyes that she despised him. But there was none of that there. Only sadness and love. She put her arms around him again and held him close, and for a minute he thought maybe everything was going to be all right.

Maybe it was more than a minute, because suddenly she was pushing at his shoulders. “Major. Don’t fall asleep on me.”

“So comfy.”

“You’re ridiculous.” She disentangled herself from his arms and took his hand. “Come on, let’s get you some rest.”

“Yeah, I guess. If we have to.” He yawned, then gave her the smile he knew she couldn’t resist. “Cuddles?”

Liv narrowed her eyes, but she was smiling, too. “Couch.”

“No, couch, really? Come on. Snuggles. I’ll behave.”

“Yes, well, maybe I can trust you … but I’m not sure I trust myself.” Her thumb stroked the back of his hand. “Let’s get you some sleep, and we’ll talk more in the morning.”

He felt like crap when he woke up on her couch, but better crap than he’d felt like in weeks. Except that his arm hurt. Opening his eyes, he saw Liv sitting next to him, a stethoscope in her ears, and she was … taking his blood pressure? Not sexy. Not sexy at all.

She ripped off the blood pressure cuff as Major rolled over and stretched. “How are you feeling?”

“Great. Who doesn’t enjoy waking up to a beautiful woman cutting off his circulation?”

“Pulse seems normal. Color’s okay. BP’s 116 over 77.” Doctor Liv. He loved Doctor Liv. Even pale and blonde, she was beautiful. “No alarm bells yet, but the truest test …” She reached for the steaming cup of rich dark beverage next to her and handed it to him. “Coffee.”

He took a deep swallow, grimacing at the taste, and Liv immediately reached for the tray next to her.

“Is that look of disgust because you need cream and sugar, or do you need habanero?”

Major looked at her, then into the cup of disappointing liquid. “It’s because you’re still incapable of turning hot water and coffee grounds into a palatable beverage.” She frowned at him, clearly not appreciating him taking her concerns lightly. Honestly, he had forgotten while he was sleeping what she was worried about, and had thought all this concern was regarding the Utopium. Which, he realized, he still hadn’t told her much about. But he wasn’t about to ruin this moment with that depressing topic. “Liv, relax,” he told her, “I’d know if I turned into a zombie. I didn’t.”

“We got lucky,” she said, unconvinced. Then she realized what she’d said.

“That’s not how I remember it.”

“I’ll rephrase. We dodged a bullet.” She looked away, her brow furrowing in thought. “You know what I keep asking myself?”

Major sat up. “Why? Why didn’t the Seahawks just give the ball to Marshawn?”

She ignored him, the way she used to when she tried to be serious and he tried not to let her. God, he had missed this. Missed her. Missed them. “How stupid must we be? Unless there’s a cure, we have no future as a couple.”

Oh, no, she didn’t. They’d already been down this road, and it had sucked. Hard. He wasn’t going another step in that direction, not when the road back was wide open, with no traffic and prepaid tolls. “You sure about that?”

“Well, think about it. You’ve always wanted kids, that could never happen. No sex—and I know you’re not ready to write that off.”

He reached for her hand. “I seem to recall a couple of items on the menu that don’t involve exchange of fluids.”

She really wasn’t going to let him sexy or cute her out of her head. “Well, I could be holding your arm walking down an icy sidewalk. I slip, I reach out for you, I scratch you. Instant zombie.”

Major sat forward. “So far, it sounds to me like all of our problems could be solved with condoms and rock salt.”

Liv put a hand on his shoulder. “You came over here because you needed help. We were best friends. Let’s be that again.”

She turned away as her phone buzzed, and Major watched her, feeling that indescribable warmth that came with being with Liv, being in love with Liv. This was what had been missing all this time. He wasn’t letting it go again without a fight, even if it was Liv he had to fight.

“It’s Ravi,” she said. “Got a body. Sorry. I’ll check in with you later. Okay? Friends.”

He smiled. “Friends.” And more. She just had to get used to the idea again. He could wait. He still had to tell her everything about the Utopium, to decide how much, or if, to tell her about Vaughn du Clark. But that could wait, too. As long as they were Major and Liv again, everything would be all right eventually. Major settled back against the couch cushions, feeling better already.


	24. In the End if I'm with You

Major thought he'd put Rita off by insisting on a more potent tranquilizer before he went after any more zombies, but that ploy wouldn't last long. He couldn't kill anyone else … but they weren't going to let him off the hook, either. He had to come up with a way to look like he was taking down the zombies on the list without actually doing it.

He was turning that idea over in his mind when he went to Rita's office, as he had been commanded to do, and was faced with the head of R&D, who seemed not to understand that zombies were people, living, breathing, intelligent members of the community. Rita and Vaughn didn't seem to understand that, either. With some pain, he realized he hadn't thought of them that way, either. He had thought of them only as killers, as things to get rid of. That was how he had seen Liv in that nightmare moment when he was dying and the blond zombie guy had told him about her. He had been punishing her ever since for not being human—but the first time he'd been asked to kill someone like her, he had seen that guy as more human than he had given Liv, the woman he loved, credit for being. He would have to make that up to her.

In the meantime, he was still being asked to kill people. Zombies, right, but people in every other sense of the word. All the defeat, the hopelessness, the longing for oblivion that had weighed him down for months came rushing back, and even the euphoria of kissing Liv couldn't hold it at bay. He went home and lay on his bed and reached for the vial of utopium, holding it in his hands, studying it, knowing the rush he would feel when he took it, the lack of concern for all the people, even himself, who needed him to be Major Lilywhite. What good was Major Lilywhite, anyway? Who had he ever helped?

He twisted the cap off the vial and held it to his nose, but before he could sniff it, he heard footsteps on the stairs outside his room. Hastily, he stuck the vial under the covers next to him. And just in time, because the door opened and Liv came in.

She looked around at the disaster of the room, the rumpled bedding, the sleeping dog, Major himself lying stretched out on the bed. "What the hell, Lilywhite? It's 7:45 pm. Are you 90?"

"Rough day is all."

Liv put her hands on her hips. "I'm gonna remind you of something, son. Something you already know. The world ain't all dily bars and debutante balls. The world throws wicked punches. Wants to see who goes down easy. Some people stay on the mat." She looked down at him, intently. "Not you, though. You were an undersized walk-on free safety at U-Dub." Major sat up straight, his back against the metal rods of the headboard, wondering where she was going with this. Wondering who she had eaten today—and wondering just a little at how not-weird that concept suddenly seemed. "Three years later you were a starter! It takes a tough, get-back-off-the-mat son-of-a-bitch to do that. But that ain't what impressed me. I fell in love with the guy who could have cashed in on his looks, his connections, his notoriety, but instead, he said, 'I've been blessed and I want to give back'."

She was beautiful when she was all fired up, even if it was someone else's fire. Actually … this was her fire. He had heard versions of this speech before, although he had never needed to hear it quite this badly.

"'I'm gonna be a social worker'," Liv continued, pacing back and forth beside his bed, "'I'm gonna be the guy who helps others get back up.'" She knelt next to the bed. "I know you've taken some haymakers lately. I know that this time it's harder to get back up than it's ever been. But you're Major mother-flippin' Lilywhite and you don't quit."

He loved her so much. He had needed her so much. He was smiling at her now just because she was Liv and she was doing what Liv did—refusing to give up. She was the one who didn't quit. "God, you're so weird," he whispered, but she knew what he meant.

She stood up, looking around at the room again. "Open a window. It reeks in here. Shower, for god sakes, and clean this mess up. And Lilywhite?"

He looked up at her, amazed at how quickly a night that almost went down that same broken road again had turned around.

"There still any utopium in here?" Before he could respond, she said, "And the answer better be, 'Not in my house'."

So he did what seemed like the right idea. He lied to her, hoping it would be one of the last times he had to. "There's not." She gave him a side-eye, waiting, and he finished, as instructed. "Not in my house."

"Speak up, son!"

Louder, feeling stronger, he said, "Not in my house."

"Good." She stood up straight, looking at him like she loved him—more, like she liked him. "I'll meet you downstairs when you're done. We can watch Hoosiers."

That got his attention. How many times had he asked her to watch that movie with him? "After all these years? You've always refused before."

"Well, back then I was worried that seeing you cry over fictional sports would adversely affect my sexual desire for you." She smiled, devilishly, and she was beautiful as hell and twice as frustrating. "But that's not an issue anymore. Friend."

Hours later, he said good-bye to her at the door. They'd watched the movie and thrown popcorn at each other and held hands at the end, tears in both their eyes as the credits rolled, and now Major wanted so badly to kiss her good-night, but Liv socked him on the arm instead and left, promising pizza for their next hang-out, as she called it.

When she was gone, Major closed the door behind her and leaned against it, completely aware of the goofiness of the smile on his face. The last time he felt this effervescent, this much anticipation of something great that was coming his way, was the night he had dropped her off at her sorority house. He hadn't kissed her then because he had known she was worth waiting for. She still was.


	25. What Do You Want to Be?

Of all the places Major might have thought his newfound ‘friend’ Liv would be taking him, a YMCA wouldn’t even have made the list. His heart skipped a beat when he saw her waiting for him … just like it used to. God, he was a lucky man. Friend-zoned or not, for the moment, she was his again. He had forgotten how good it felt, like he was ten feet tall and walking on air. He dug the gym bag and basketball he had brought out of the back of his car and met her at the door, trying not to grin like an idiot. But so was she, so he figured it was safe.

They walked together through the halls. “How was your day?” Liv asked.

“Oh, little of this, little of that. Yours?”

“Same.”

He glanced down at her. “I’ll give you this, you’re taking this friends thing seriously. I thought the friendship offer was something girls said when they don’t want to see you naked.”

She grinned up at him. “Like you’ve heard a lot of that.”

“I’ve read about it.” It felt so good to smile again. To smile with Liv again. “Seriously, though, _Hoosiers_ last night, playin’ hoops today. What’re we gonna do tomorrow? We should eat some chicken wings and talk about whether or not the movie _Casino_ was any good.”

“You … may be busy tomorrow.” 

They rounded the corner and Major saw a bunch of kids in pinneys milling around the court, practicing shots and dribbles. “Liv, what’re we doing here?”

“You mean with this ragtag group of disadvantaged kids who tragically lost their coach a few days ago? Oh, did I forget to mention they’d be here?”

“Okay, I see what you’re trying to do.”

“Well, I’m not being subtle.”

She never had been. Apparently that, at least, hadn’t changed.

One of the kids shouted, “Is this the guy?”

Major guessed that was the question. He used to be the guy, that much he knew. Could he be the guy again? Did he want to?

Liv looked up at him expectantly. “Well?” She wanted him to. She believed in him—that, also, hadn’t changed. And he wanted to be the guy again, if not for himself, then for her. And, yeah, for these kids who had lost something important and needed someone to step up to take that place. He knew how to do that kind of thing; it was what he had trained for.

“Yeah. Hustle up!” He clapped his hands. “Guys, my name’s Major—yeah, my parents were mean and they hated me, let’s move past that. Let’s play some hoops!”

He separated them into groups, learning their names one at a time as he watched what they could do, finding out how their previous coach had worked. He got them into a scrimmage, paying attention to who had the feel for the ball and who needed to get a little more comfortable with it.

What he hadn’t expected was his assistant coach. Liv was behind him every step of the way, calling out advice and encouragement to the kids—and sounding pretty damned competent. Whoever the coach was whose brain she had eaten, he had known his stuff. Major thought he might kind of miss this brain when it was gone. He had never considered that it might have advantages, this constant change in personality.

Also, she was really hot, getting into the game and calling out strategy.

Two of the boys got into a bit of a scuffle, and Major stuck his whistle in his mouth, calling for a time out as he hurried onto the court, pushing the boys apart. “Hey! Break it up! Whoa!” He looked them each in the eye. “Is that the kind of team this is? Huh? The kind of team Coach Hayden would want you to be?”

One of the kids, Charlie, shook his head. “No.”

The other one, Jordy, frowned at Major. “Wow. You went there.”

“I’m shameless.” He looked at them both again. “Look, Charlie, keep your elbows down. Jordy, stop head-butting Charlie’s elbows.”

Neither one of them was convinced, but hopefully now they both knew what he would and would not put up with. He was going to have to keep an eye on them, though. One fight often led to more.

Liv was watching him from the sidelines, smugly pleased with herself.

Practice ended, and Major fielded the thanks, and the advice, both useless and not so much, of the parents as they picked up their kids. The kids themselves gave him grudgingly respectful good-byes, but he could tell they weren’t convinced. They knew he wasn’t a complete dud, but they didn’t trust him yet. No biggie. Trust wasn’t built in a single practice. He could work on it.

When they were alone on the court, Liv swatted him on the rear with a towel. “Give you some time, Lilywhite, we’ll get you up to speed.”

“Me? This from a girl who thought the paint meant they let a pony on the court.”

They stood there grinning foolishly at each other, moving slowly closer together until it would only have taken another step to pull her against him and drop his head just that little bit more and …

Liv stepped back. “I should … go.”

“Should you?” He took a deep breath, forcing himself to remember the friends thing. “I thought we were going to see who could eat the most chicken wings and down the most beer.”

“Tempting. But Ravi’s in the morgue tonight so you have to get back and walk Minor.”

“I could do both.”

There was something about the mention of the dog that was cold water down his back, though. Little as he wanted to go home alone and face that room where he had spent so much miserable time in the last few months, he also didn’t want a casual conversation with Liv to lead down the road of where he’d gotten the dog or what he was doing working for Max Rager, both questions that so far hadn’t come up. 

He smiled, squeezing her shoudler. “Good-night, Liv.”

“Good-night, Major.”

At least tonight when he drove home alone, he knew he would be seeing her again soon, which was more than he had known for a long time. That was something. For now, it was enough.


	26. The Man I Really Am

Major sat, sipping coffee, wishing he could enjoy the pleasant night and the peace he felt. But no. Because across the restaurant, finishing his own coffee while he read the paper, sat a zombie. And Major had to kill him, because freaking Max Rager had him over a barrel. As much as he was glad to have Liv back in his life, glad to have her weird coach brain tough love help him turn his life around and get himself back on track, he hated this part. He didn’t want to be the zombie stalker of Seattle.

But there was nothing for it. Vaughn du Clark wouldn’t hesitate to act on his threats if Major didn’t start dealing with the zombies on the list. He put his cup down and got up, making his way across the room. 

He asked the zombie for part of the paper he was reading, picking it up and watching the hairs rise on his arm from the proximity. It was weird, spending so much time with Liv recently, he had come to feel this as a familiar sensation rather than a sign of danger, which made it even harder to see this man as someone he was supposed to take care of. But as he walked away, resigning himself to what he had to do, a woman and a little boy came past him, the little boy shouting out “Daddy!” as he ran toward the zombie.

Watching the zombie lift his child in his arms, Major made a decision. There could not be any more killing. These were people, men and women who were suffering from something they didn’t ask for. He was not going to be responsible for taking their lives. On the other hand … if he didn’t take them out of circulation, Vaughn du Clark would. And he would start with Liv.

So if he couldn’t kill them, could he talk them into disappearing? No, they would never go for that. They wouldn’t want to leave their lives and families behind, they couldn’t hide well enough to evade Max Rager’s long arms entirely. It just wouldn’t work. 

He shook his head impatiently, shoving his hands into his pockets as he walked along. It was getting chillier out as the fog set in. Later tonight he was sure it would be freezing … 

Then it came to him. The freezer where Blaine had held him. Those kids from the shelter had been there, too—some of them de-brained, but others just … waiting to be thawed out. If you could freeze a zombie, then in theory, he could kidnap them and stick them in freezers. Keep the freezers in storage units scattered around town, rented in someone else’s name, until he figured out how to deal with Max Rager and Vaughn du Clark? It was worth a try, anyway, and far, far better than what he had been doing.

God, he almost felt like himself again. It felt good. He didn’t want to lose it. Never again.

The next day, he caught up with Rita in her office, handing her the list he had doctored. “Checked off eight potentials this week. None were zombies.” He didn’t expect that to hold her, or du Clark, off for too long, but all he needed was to buy himself a little time in order to get the freezer plan in motion.

Rita flipped through the pages. “You’re sure? None?”

“Yeah.” He took a deep breath. He thought she was going to take this next part okay—they had never pretended any emotional entanglement—but you could never be sure how “I don’t want to sleep with you anymore” would go over. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to mix business with … whatever we were doing.”

She looked at him, her face unreadable, and gave a little nod. “We’ll play it by ear.”

Taking the papers, she took the seat behind her desk, tapping keys on her laptop. Major stood there a moment, having expected more … sarcasm, if nothing else, then turned and left the room, glad to have escaped a scene.

Rita’s voice followed him out into the hallway, stopping him in his tracks. “I’m not sure Vaughn explained to you the full extent of how our list is generated. There are statistical probabilities attached to each of the potential zombies we’ve given you. And the likelihood of these eight names all coming back negative is … low.” She looked up at him, and Major could see he wasn’t fooling her. Well, he hadn’t really expected to, not for long. All he needed was a few days to figure out exactly how to make the freezers work.

He smiled. “Never tell me the odds.”

Leaving the building, he thought it likely that Rita had no idea where that line had come from. Too bad—she was a smart, beautiful, capable woman. A little less evil and she’d be very good for someone. But not for Major. She never had been good for him.

Liv was, though. Having her back in his life was better by far than any high he had ever gotten from Utopium. He remembered the look the kid from Helton had given him, and shuddered. There was no way to be Major Lilywhite, to be Liv’s Major, and take that stuff. He should never have started. Going home, he dug out the last vial he had. No question, he craved it. The oblivion, the rush, the sensation of flipping off the world by actively screwing up his life that way … there was a temptation in all of it. But compared to the way Liv had looked at him when they were coaching those kids on the basketball court? Utopium was and always would be a distant second. 

He could give up the Utopium, but there was no way he could give up Liv again. Not ever. She was what made him who he was. He loved her, more than he had known before that damned boat party, more than he could have imagined. And he wanted her back not just in his life, not just as his friend, but as his love, his partner, his … everything.

Major dropped the vial in the toilet and flushed it down, breathing a sigh of relief when it was gone and no longer even a possibility.

Then he did a few things that had fallen off his personal hygiene list lately—he shaved, and he put on cologne, and he gave some attention to his nose hairs and his eyebrows. Liv was coming over tonight, and he wanted to be her Major, top to bottom.

Downstairs, he found Liv crouched in front of Minor, ruffling the dog’s ears. He hadn’t known Liv was an animal lover. She’d always been so busy, so driven, when they were together. Maybe there were some hidden bonuses in this zombie thing after all, he thought, watching her. God, how he loved her.

Looking up, she saw him and her face lit up. “Hey! Sorry, I knocked, but no one answered, and this guy was talkin’ trash so I had to let myself in and show him who’s boss.” She came toward him, the smile widening on her face, as if she was as happy to be with him as he was to be with her. Reaching a hand up, she stroked his cheek. “There’s the Major I remember.” She reached into her purse, digging around for her keys.

“Are you leaving?”

“No. We’re just … going to get a bite? Pizza, maybe? What do you feel like?”

The words tumbled out. Not the way he had practiced, but he couldn’t hold it in, not standing here in front of her like this, so close. “Liv, I don’t want to do this anymore.”

She froze, looking alarmed. “Do what?”

“Pretend I’m okay just being your friend. I want more. I want us to be together again.”

Her eyes searched his, and he could practically see her thoughts written on her face, the worry about being a zombie and what that would mean, the fears of whether they were still the same people and if they could be to each other what they had once been. “Major, nothing’s changed,” she said at last. “I still—“

He couldn’t let her finish, putting up more obstacles between them. “I know all the risks, and all the reasons it can’t work, but I don’t care. I’m a better man with you in my life. Do you want to give it another shot?”

“Major …”

“Liv. Please.”

“But—“

He put his fingers over her lips. He couldn’t let her say no. She loved him, he could see it in her face. “I know what I’m asking. I really do. And we can be as careful as you want, take … things as slowly as you want. As long as I’m with you, that’s what matters.”

“Major.” The word came out in a faint whisper as she stretched up toward him and he leaned down toward her. And then she was kissing him and all was right with the world.


	27. How Happy I Can Be

Major woke to the sun streaming in through the windows and the crushing weight of another day ahead. He lay there for a moment, eyes closed, wishing to hold on to the dream he’d been having just a little longer. But then a very real body shifted next to him, a very real mouth kissed his chest, and a very real, very loved voice said, “Well, look who’s awake.”

He opened his eyes. “The Stay-Puft marshmallow man?”

Liv ran her fingertips lightly over his chest. “No marshmallows here. Try again.”

It was hard to think of any properly entertaining quips while she was stroking and kissing him. Major had trained for this moment once upon a time, but it had been a while. “Mr. Clean.”

“Really? That’s too bad. I was hoping for something a little more … dirty.” She licked the line of his ribs and Major drew in his breath sharply. 

“Liv!”

“No, I’m pretty sure that’s me.” She straddled his thighs, looking down at each other. “Looks like me. Don’t you think?” She grinned down at him.

Major was looking. Oh, yes. Being a zombie had paled her skin, but it was still smooth and soft, and if anything, she was more muscular than he remembered. He reached out, cupping her breasts. “There is evidence to suggest it’s you, but I think we need to do a few more tests.” He sat up, taking a nipple in his mouth, rolling his tongue around it. Liv sighed, letting her head fall back, her hands tangling in his hair as he moved his mouth to the other breast.

“Major.”

“God, I missed you,” he whispered, kissing his way up her chest to her collarbone and her neck and finding her mouth at last. Reflexively, he worried about morning breath, but he didn’t care, and from the abandon in her kiss, it was clear she didn’t, either. 

Both of them had kept their underwear on last night, avoiding any potential exchanges of bodily fluids beyond saliva, and now the layers of cloth added to the friction as Liv’s hips rocked back and forth and she rubbed against him. He put his hands on her thighs, pulling her down more firmly against him.

But Liv pulled away. “Too close!”

Major wanted to protest, but he also didn’t want to become a zombie. Instead, he rolled over, leaning on one elbow while his free hand slid between her legs, stroking her through the fabric of her panties. “Better?” He kissed her just under the ear.

“Better, yes,” Liv gasped. She reached for him, thought better of it, and dug her fingers into the sheets below her instead, twisting and writhing and pressing against his fingers as he kissed and stroked her, keeping the barrier of the fabric between his fingers and her bare skin. He wanted to touch her, wanted to bury himself inside her and truly be one with her, but she wasn’t ready to take any chances, and he was happy enough to have her back in his life, his bed, and his arms that he wasn’t complaining just yet.

At last, Liv cried out, gripping the sheets more tightly as her body tensed and shook with her pleasure.

She opened her eyes, smiling up at him. “I can’t think of a better way to wake up.”

“Me, neither.”

“My turn,” she whispered, turning to her side so she could reach down between them. Since she didn’t have to worry about catching anything from him, she could touch him properly, and Major moaned and held her more tightly as she demonstrated again that she hadn’t forgotten anything he liked. Between her touch and the sheer intoxication of being with her, it didn’t take him long to get there, and then he held her there beneath him, feeling his heart pounding in the best possible way.

Liv leaned back into the pillows, her cool, slender fingers stroking his hair and his cheek and his neck and his chest, her eyes hazy and happy just like he remembered from before, and things might have gone to a second round if Major’s stomach hadn’t loudly reminded him that last night’s pizza had been a long time ago.

“You appear to be hiding a velociraptor in the closet.”

“Man, and I was saving him for a special occasion.” Major kissed her shoulder, and her cheek, and her nose, then bounced out of bed. “What can I say, I worked up an appetite. You want anything?”

“I’ll come down in a minute.”

He turned to look at her while he pulled on a pair of pants. “You know Ravi and Peyton will be down there, right? You ready to go public with this?”

“You kidding? I have all this lost bragging time to make up for.”

“Well, if you must. I am quite the catch.” He hadn’t been, not for a long time, but this morning he felt like maybe he could be again. Major grabbed a T-shirt and gave Liv a last grin, just in case this all really did turn out to be a dream, before leaving the room.

A delectable smell was coming from the kitchen. “Eggs!” He helped himself, straight off the spatula, making appreciative noises. Both Ravi and Peyton were fair cooks, but it wouldn’t have mattered this morning. Burnt, runny, Easter … any kind of eggs would have tasted good. Grabbing the remote, he turned on the music, bopping to the beat. Then he grabbed an apple, rolling it down his arm and tossing it up in the air before he slid into the seat opposite Peyton and Ravi and looked down at the crispy bacon with lustful eyes. “What’s shakin’, bacon?”

“Body-snatchers?” Peyton asked, frowning at him.

Major grinned as footsteps were heard in the hallway upstairs, heart pounding in anticipation of what was to come. 

Ravi eyed him suspiciously. “If that’s Rihanna coming downstairs, it would explain so much.”

It was hard to argue with that one, although Major doubted if he could possibly have been as happy to see Rihanna as he was to see Liv walk into the kitchen wearing only his shirt. “Hey, everyone!”

He got up, going to her and kissing her. He hadn’t even had a chance at the bacon or the coffee yet, but Liv tasted better than both.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Peyton said. “Is this happening?”

Liv’s smile was the biggest, happiest smile he had seen on her since before that damned boat party. “It’s happening,” she confirmed, resting her head against his chest. 

Major put his arms around her and held her close.

“Well, about damn time.” Peyton was looking at them like they were Peaches and Herb—reunited and it felt so good.

Ravi was staring at them in what looked like horror. “It won’t always be this nauseating, right?”

“Suffer, bitch,” Major whispered at him before turning to Liv for another kiss. 

Liv took his hand and led him back to the table, sliding in and grabbing a slice of bacon. “We make Mickey and Minnie look like the Bickersons.”

“Lovely. And this …” Ravi waved his hand in Liv’s general direction. “Smiley, happy, coupley thing is going to be happening at work, too?”

“Oh, I think so.” Liv took another piece of bacon.

“Wonderful. Look up from an open corpse and see that. Won’t be at all disconcerting.”

“Aw, can the big bad medical examiner not handle a little sunshine in the darkness of his life?” Major asked over his coffee cup, laughing at the look Ravi shot him, then snagged Liv’s third piece of bacon out of her hand and ate it.

Ravi looked at Peyton. “It goes away eventually, right?”

Peyton made a face, shaking her head. “No. They’re a constant sugar high. Voted Most Perfect Couple by the sorority three years running. They had T-shirts made.”

“Sometimes we wore them.” Major winked at Ravi, who made gagging sounds.

“Ooh, I think I still have mine. Maybe I’ll wear it to work,” Liv said brightly. 

“Maybe I’ll fire you.”

“You would never. Where would you get a more interesting assistant?”

He frowned. “Point.”

“It’s kind of nice, actually,” Peyton said, watching them fondly across the table as Major ate the piece of bacon Liv was holding out to him, kissing her knuckles when he got to them. “Like the world is right again.”

“I suppose it is, at that,” Ravi agreed. “But stop hogging the bacon!”


	28. Welcome to Your Life

This was just the way it should be. Walking with Liv, talking with Liv, hearing about her day and all the gross medical details of it that used to make him secretly sick and now were just … part of life these days, telling her about his day. He’d always had to edit a fair amount in order to avoid breaking the confidences of the boys, so that was nothing new, either. As long as he avoided mentioning anything about Max Rager, he should be fine. 

They would be fine. He knew that now, and a smile spread across his face.

“What’s that smile for, Mister?”

“Just thinking about this girl I met. She was … well, I think I may be smitten.”

“That better be the Starbucks mermaid you’re talking about, or I’m going to have to fight her.”

He laughed and tugged her closer. “The way you’re going after that ice cream, I may need to fight it.”

Liv glanced at the cone. “I think it could take you. This is some seroius vanilla.”

“Come on, vanilla’s not a serious flavor. It’s the flavor that takes the place of all the other flavors.”

“Right … when they run away. Duh. Vanilla’s tough. Besides, you’re eating vanilla, too.” She looked over at someone who was waving at her, and lifted her hand to wave back just as Major recognized the man as her partner, Clive.

“Oh, no.” Clive was still after Major for more details about the Meat Cute situation, and no one wanted that. “Abort. Just turn around.”

“I’m already waving. That would be incredibly weird. Nut up.” As they approached the bench, Clive and the pretty blonde woman he was with stood up. “Hey, you!” Liv said brightly. “Didn’t know you existed outside the station. I thought you were just put back inside your Detective Clive box. Pull his string and he says, ‘Ms. Moore. Please!’”

Everyone laughed awkwardly.

Clive looked between the two of them and then at the blonde. “Liv, Major, this is Agent Bozzio from the FBI.”

Major went cold. He might as well have been made of vanilla ice cream, for the chill that went through him. What was Clive doing having dinner with the FBI?

“Dale,” Agent Bozzio clarified. She looked at Liv. “It’s nice to get a name. In my head you’ve been ‘girl from the morgue who somehow makes goth work’.”

“That is her Native American name.” Major gestured to himself with the ice cream hand. It was melting; he still felt frozen. “Hi, I’m ‘barely employed arm candy’.” But he couldn’t keep her from knowing his name, he realized, belatedly remembering that Clive had just said it anyway. He reached out his non-ice cream hand. “No, I’m Major.”

Bozzio gave him a quick look-over. “You certainly are.”

It was nice to be appreciated. It was even nicer to see the faint lift of Liv’s chin out of the corner of his eye. He loved jealous Liv. She was feisty. 

“So, the FBI sent you to Seattle?” Liv asked Bozzio. “How are you finding it?” Clive was trying to throw out a napkin, but it was sticking to his fingers. Liv stared at him for a moment. “Ten bucks says you miss.”

Ah, the gambler brain. He’d have to see how he could make that work for him later. 

“What, from here?” Clive frowned. “I’m automatic at this distance.”

“Put your money where your mouth is, then.” Liv grinned as Clive crumpled the napkin, ready to object. “Now you’re thinking about it. I’m in your head.”

“All right, seriously. Ten bucks.”

Liv grinned at Bozzio. “That is the sound of a man’s sphincter shrinking.”

“Well, it’s your money,” Clive said, and made the shot easily. Left-handed, Major noted, wondering if the detective was a lefty or just a good shot. Maybe he could use some help coaching the kids’ team. They could get close, cozy up, Major could find out more about the Meat Cute situation … Major could let slip something about Vaughn du Clark and the missing zombies, Clive could recognize Minor … No, not a good idea at all, then. Clive grinned at Liv. “Pay up.”

“What? I just made you look good in front of your date. You should be paying me.”

Clive gestured wildly around, loudly disclaiming the possibility of this being a date, while Bozzio gave Liv an admiring look. Because she’d ducked out on paying the bet, or because she’d broken the news to Clive that Bozzio was into him, Major wondered. Or maybe both.

Bozzio looked at Clive, mock serious, as he denied being on a date. “It’s not? Why did I pay, then? You’re saying that I’m not … getting any, or …?”

If Clive could have turned twelve shades of red, he would have. Major couldn’t help enjoying the moment. He thought, if she wasn’t FBI and didn’t represent all sorts of problems, he might like this Bozzio.

Recovering, Clive carried war into the enemy’s camp. He gestured at Major. “It’s good to see you two together. Last I heard, you were broken up.”

Major moved protectively closer to Liv, putting his arm around her. “And now we’re not.” He and Clive looked at each other, each completely aware that there was unfinished business between them.

Liv, either oblivious or doing a good job pretending, leaned into Major’s shoulder and smiled. “Seems like romance is in the air.”

Clive glanced at Bozzio, who was still amused by the whole thing, but let the rest of it go.

“Nice to meet you,” Liv said, with some finality, and she and Major turned to go.

Once they were out of earshot, Major sighed. “He’s not gonna let the Meat Cute thing go. He’s got the FBI involved now?”

But Liv shook her head. “No, that’s not why she’s here.”

“Oh. Okay. Well, good.” 

But any relief Major may have felt was short-lived, killed to death by Liv’s next words. “No, she’s looking into all those abduction cases.”

“Abduction cases?” he said instantly, pretending not to know what she meant.

“All those rich guys that keep disappearing. It’s all over the news. The Feds think it’s some Manson-y ‘kill the rich’ nut.”

Major glanced back at Bozzio, sorry now that he had liked her. Sorrier still that she seemed so sharp. 

“Anyway …” Liv tucked her arm through his. “What do you say we go back to my place and bet on some football.”

The last thing he felt like right now was having fun. But if he let the news that the FBI was coming for him get him down, Liv would notice, and eventually she would put two and two together. He forced a smile. “I can’t tell whether I find these brains disturbing or I kind of love them.”

“Well, in case there’s any question, all my brains kind of love you.”

Major kissed the top of her head. “That’s good to know.”


	29. On You, I See the Glory

Major’s phone beeped in mid-session with a client. A legit client, for a change, not Vaughn du Clark. Major could do without more time spent in the Max Rager offices right now. He still had to get back to the suspected zombie list, a task he had been pleasantly distracted from by reconciling with Liv.

Peeping at the caller ID, he couldn’t help grinning when he saw her name. He had never expected to be back together, or to be this happy, again, and now that he had it, he wanted to bask in every moment.

As soon as he was done with his client, he called her back. “What’s up, buttercup?”

Liv laughed. God, he loved to hear her laugh. “You’re as corny as Kansas in August, that’s what’s up.”

“Guilty as charged. Anything else?”

“Yeah, some potentially not so sunshiny news. Hang on.” There was a pause and a click as she presumably went somewhere private and shut the door. “Ravi thinks we shouldn’t have sex.”

“He’s that weirded out about passing you half-naked in the hallway? Wait—just at my place, or at all?”

“At all. He’s really concerned about the transfer of certain … things, and wants to run tests.”

“Ouch. I mean, on the one hand, I like that he has my best interests so at heart, but on the other … blocked by a tall, handsome Brit? Should I be concerned?”

“I love that you’re taking this so well,” Liv answered. “And, I know you’re not serious, but for the record, you’re all the tall and handsome I need, thanks.”

It was good to hear. Not that he’d ever been seriously concerned about her relationship with Ravi, but he couldn’t help the occasional dark thought in the dead of night. Speaking of … “You know, just because one menu is out doesn’t mean we can’t switch restaurants.”

“Yeah?”

“Mm-hm. There’s something I always wanted to try, anyway. How do you feel about Skype?”

So they set up the date. Liv had a glass of wine in her hand when the call connected. 

“Getting fortified? Kinda hurts my manly feelings that you need to be boozed up,” he told her.

“It does not. Besides, it’s not you I need to be boozed up for, it’s this thing.” She tapped the screen.

“Technology can be scary, but it can also be your friend.”

“Thank you, Mr. Monitor. Trying out for a children’s show?”

He laughed. “I don’t think what we’re about to do is for children.”

“No, but I’m hoping it’ll be quite the show.” She grinned at him wickedly, and he was glad to see her starting to get into the spirit of the thing.

“When do you want to get started?”

She drained the glass, refilled it, then toasted him with it. “Okay. Two glasses of wine. I think I’m ready.”

“It doesn’t get any safer than this.”

“We could just wait until Ravi finishes his research.”

“Nope. It’s on.”

“High card strips,” Liv said. “Draw.” He took a card off the deck in front of him and looked at it. “What did you get?” she asked.

“A two,” he bluffed.

“Liar. Show your card, Lilywhite.”

Reluctantly, he flipped the card over and showed her the nine. Liv drew, glanced at the card, and turned it around to him with a smile. It was a seven.

“Read ‘em and weep.”

He groaned with mock disappointment, then reached for the collar of his shirt, starting to pull it off over his head.

“Slow down, now, make it a show,” Liv said.

“Hey, don’t you dare make me feel cheap.”

“Come on, everyone knows this is how you put yourself through college.”

Major grinned, yanking the shirt off over his head. He hadn’t wanted to tell her, but he’d been nervous about this, too, as much as it had been his idea and a long-time fantasy. But stripping for Liv now, anticipating her reaction to seeing him naked—always good for his ego—was even more of a turn-on than he had imagined it might be. He tossed the shirt off over his shoulder and leaned toward the screen. “Hey, how about a face card means you provide a little dirty talk?”

“We’ll see.” Liv had never been one for a lot of excess words in bed. She lifted the bottle of wine. “I may need to finish this bottle first.” Putting the wine down, she reached for her deck of cards.

“Wait. Let’s show each other at once. Build some drama.”

“All right.” She held the deck in front of her. “Three. Two. One.” They flipped their cards, showing each other, then glanced at their own. Liv had a four, Major a king.

“Well, luckily, I’m wearing four pairs of socks.”

“No, sir. Full monty. Gimme the goods.”

“All right.” He stood up and stripped off his boxers, showing her the little surprise he’d picked up.

Liv frowned at the screen. “What? A G-string? Uncool.”

“I play to win.” He sat back down—a little gingerly. The G-string had been tight when he put it on, and now, half-hard with anticipation as he was, it was fairly constrictive. “Now, draw, lady. Three. Two. One.” This time he had a seven and Liv had a queen. “Oh, yeah.” He folded his arms, waiting for the show.

Slowly, a little hesitantly, Liv pulled off her shirt, showing him everything that lay under it—no bra. God, she was so beautiful.

“All right. That did the trick for me.” Major grinned at her through the screen. “’Night.”

Liv laughed. “Chicken.”

“Oh, now, what kind of dirty talk is that?”

“I’m sorry, here I am showing you the girls in all their glory and you want dirty talk, too? Let’s see what you have first.”

He flexed, letting her see all the carefully defined muscles of his chest. “I think I went bare-chested first, if memory serves. Let’s see what else you have on.”

“Fine.” She stood up, showing him the toned muscles of her stomach, and unsnapped her jeans, shimmying out of them. New underwear, lacy and black.

“Damn, woman.” Major adjusted himself. “I think I’m going to have to move to the bed. Care to join me?”

“Oh, yeah.”

There was a pause in the action while they each got set up. By mutual agreement, they weren’t going to go the full full monty onscreen, but looking at her firm, soft breasts was arousing enough. Major shifted enough to pull off the constricting G-string. “Will you—will you touch them for me? You know, the way I like to.”

Hesitantly at first, then with more confidence as it felt good, Liv cupped and stroked her breasts.

“Then … with your thumbs. Oh, yeah.” He sighed with her as she rubbed her thumbs across her nipples. One hand drifted down over his stomach to stroke himself lightly in time with her movements.

“I wish you were here,” Liv said softly.

He refused to get drawn into regret over the situation. “Pretend I am. What would you do?”

“Kiss you.”

“And then?” Her mouth was shaped like a kiss right now, her eyes half-closed, as she massaged her breasts and imagined him with her.

“Kiss your neck, and run my hands across your chest.”

“Like this?” He slowly drew his free hand down across his chest and over his stomach.

“Yeah, like that.” Liv mimicked the movement, and he could see the moment her hand moved between her legs in the way she threw her head back.

“You’re so beautiful. Are you doing it the way I do?”

“Mm-hm.” She nodded, breathless. “And you?”

“I can feel your hands on me, Liv, your mouth. I love the way you touch me.”

“I love touching you. Oh, Major.”

The conversation devolved from there, gasps and muttered words and caught breaths and moans as they watched each other, the sight of one another’s pleasure so good after such a long time.

When it was over, they lay panting, coming down from the high, for a little while before each shifting and sitting up in bed, smiling through the screen. Despite the distance and the technology between them, it had been surprisingly intimate. Not as good as the real thing, but better than anything he had had with anyone else. 

“Thanks for playing along,” Liv said softly.

Major thought about pointing out that this particular coping mechanism had been his idea, but he knew what she really meant. “It was fun.”

“It was. I know it’s not the same as—“

“That’s okay.” He smiled, remembering her, before. “You remember the last time?”

“You mean, the last time we—“ She smiled, too.

“That is what I mean.”

“Yeah. Laundry room, your apartment building. We’d fought earlier about how many of your teammates would get invitations to the wedding.”

“Make-up sex. Good stuff.” They smiled at each other. “Just a couple more days.”

“A couple more days.” 

Major could see in Liv’s face that she wasn’t as sure as he was—but someone had to think positively, and that had always been his role in their relationship. “I love you, Liv.”

“I love you, too.”

The screen went dark, and Major set his laptop aside, sliding down under the covers. He might not be with her in the traditional sense, but they were a team again, and that was what counted. He went to sleep thinking of other ways around the physical stumbling block.


	30. Love Is All that I Need

“All right. We’re going to watch this whole movie and keep our hands completely to ourselves,” Liv said with determination.

“Right. Absolutely. No hands.” Without thinking, Major reached out and took Liv’s hand in his, their fingers weaving together. Absently he stroked the back of her hand with his thumb, smiling when she shivered. He loved making her shiver.

“Hey! No hands.” She yanked hers back, leaning against the back of the couch and crossing her arms over her chest.

Major picked up the remote to start the movie. What movie? Who knew. “Of course. No hands.” It was impossible not to touch her. She was so beautiful, and she smelled so good, and he ached for her. He was hard just sitting here next to her, her leg so close to his. He moved a little closer, sliding his thigh against hers. 

Liv shivered again. “Major.”

“What? I got the message. No hands.” He shifted a little closer, so that he could lean over and kiss her neck. “See, no hands needed.”

“Stop that.” But her voice was breathless and soft, and her head was tilting to the side, her eyes closing.

“You sure that’s what you want?”

“We have to wait for Ravi to finish his testing.”

“It’ll be fine.” Not using his hands was difficult; he settled for trying to undo the top button of Liv’s shirt with his teeth.

“You’re too much of an optimist.” But even as she said it, she was moving, straddling his lap, breaking her own no hands rule by reaching for the bottom of his shirt and tugging it off over his head. 

“It’s irresistible, right? My cheery whistle and constantly positive outlook?”

“It’s annoying. Shut up.” 

Easily done, when she was kissing him like this, like it was the only thing on her to-do list, her hands restless on his bare shoulders.

Since the no-fingers rule had been lifted, Major started in on the buttons of her shirt, making better progress this time.

“We shouldn’t do this,” Liv protested.

“No.” But he kept at the buttons.

“Well, maybe just a little.” She kissed him again, her body moving against his, warm and soft and perfect. Breaking the kiss, she said breathlessly, “Did you know condoms have a 98% success rate?”

Major pushed the shirt off her shoulders. “I have heard that stat somewhere.”

Another kiss, the urgency rising. “You gotta like those odds.” 

Somewhere in the fog of his brain, he realized what she was saying, what she was suggesting—and what it could mean for him. Was he willing to risk becoming a zombie just to relieve the ache he felt here in her arms? Take the risk that a condom would be enough to stop the virus, potentially wake up tied to a diet of human brains the rest of his life?

Liv must have sensed the hesitation in him. “No pressure.”

“Let’s … stick to the safe stuff for now. Let Ravi finish his tests.”

“Absolutely.” She got off his lap, reaching for his hand. “Let’s go do some wickedly safe stuff.”

“You know I love it when you talk dirty.”

On the way to the bedroom, they resumed the kissing, pieces of clothing falling to the floor—all but the final two. They fell to the bed, hands moving, very carefully, stroking and touching even as their kisses became more feverish.

They were lying together, not entirely satiated, but certainly happy, when they heard Ravi’s frantic voice outside the door. “Stop what you’re doing! I’m coming in!”

Hastily they arranged the covers over their bodies, shouting out “Wait” “What” and “Whoa” even as the door opened.

“Whoa, whoa. whoa, knocking!” Major called as Ravi entered the room, one hand clasped firmly over his eyes. “In this house we use knocking.”

Still with his hand over his eyes, Ravi asked, “Are you decent?”

“Decent enough.”

At Liv’s words, Ravi shifted his fingers so he could peek at them. Then he took his hand down. “Tell me you haven’t had sex yet.”

“Seems like a question you could have asked outside the door!”

“Have you?”

“No!” Liv shouted.

“Oh.” Ravi’s relief was palpable. “That is very, very good news.”

Liv sighed, her disappointment as sharp as Ravi’s relief. 

“Zombie virus is a hundredth the size of a typical virus,” Ravi explained. “I tested every brand of condom, every material. One hundred and two samples. Zombie virus went through all of them. If you have sex, Major will become a zombie.”

It was what he had expected, Major realized. Somehow he had known that damned boat party was going to keep coming between them, that it wasn’t going to be just like before only without the chance of having babies until Liv was cured. No, it couldn’t have been that easy.

“That is not a risk,” Ravi finished, putting the final nail in the coffin. “That’s a certainty.” 

Neither Major nor Liv said anything, neither one of them sure what to say.

Ravi went on, “Look, someday I’ll cure it. I will. But until then … I’m sorry.” He genuinely was, you could hear it in his voice. Major would have liked to be angry with Ravi for being the bearer of bad tidings, but how could you be mad at a man who worked that hard trying to get you laid?

“Thanks, Ravi,” Liv said softly. “Really.”

Major looked down at her, so beautiful, even pale and zombified as she was. He wanted a normal life with her—but the question was, could he live with having her and knowing that ‘normal’ was out of their reach for an indeterminate amount of time?

Ravi left the room, closing the door softly behind him, and Major and Liv looked at each other. 

She was worth it, Major told himself. “There’s other stuff,” he offered. “The other night was fun.” He reached for her hand, holding it reassuringly, glad to see her smile, even a little. 

“It was.”

“So we get creative.”

“We’re creative people. We’ll figure it out.”

“Yeah. This isn’t it for us.”

“It’s not.” Liv rubbed her thumb across the back of his knuckles. “So … what are you doing later? Want to catch a G-rated movie?”

Major didn’t bother to point out that was what they had been trying to do before they ended up mostly naked in bed. And he had plans for later tonight anyway—trying out his new scheme to get around Vaughn du Clark. He wished he could tell Liv what was going on, but the less she knew, the safer it was for her. “I’ve got work. Late-night training sessions. But tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow. Great.” She looked up at him hopefully. “Foot rub?”

“Yes! Wait—was that an offer or a request?”

Liv shrugged, grinning. “Both?”

“Great. Me first.”

“Of course.”


	31. On the Other Side

It was almost too easy by now. Stalking the prey, feeling the tingle on his skin, the hair rising along his arms as he got close, waiting until they were alone and pulling out the injector. This guy was older, short and skinny, so that helped. It was easy for Major to lift him, laying him out on the couch while he carefully prepped the scene, trying to make it look like a robbery as well as a kidnapping, spray painting the walls with anything he could think of. Anything to make it look like this was a vicious, violent attack rather than a precision strike carried out for a specific reason. He didn’t even know this guy—maybe someone did have a reason. But Major didn’t want to see some random relative’s life ruined by suspicion any more than he wanted to actually have to kill this rich old zombie, so he made things seem as generic and as much like the random violence of the modern age had invaded the man’s house as he could.

He tossed the body in the trunk alongside the filled garbage bag he had already prepared, and drove a circuitous route to the storage facility. He was pretty sure Max Rager wasn’t following him, so it was probably an excess of caution. On the other hand, they were probably tracking him electronically, either by his phone or by a bug in his car, so maybe he wasn’t being cautious enough. He had tried this before a couple of times, and so far neither Rita nor Vaughn du Clark had said anything to him. And what would they say? Slap his hand and tell him to get the zombies out of the freezer and kill them? At least he would have bought some time.

It had been a long time, hours, at least, of driving, before Major reached the bridge he had done his dumping from before. If they were watching for him, it would be here, he reasoned. On the radio, the news announcer described the scene they had found, the chaos and the graffiti. Apparently the police actually did suspect some kind of anti-corporate group of having done it. One step of the plan successfully carried out, at least, he thought, lifting the lid of the trunk and lifting out the garbage bag. He had been careful to weight it down so it would fall as heavily over his shoulder as if the body were really in it, and he placed it on the ground by the railing and shot it in the head before hefting it over the bridge just as he had the others. Just as if the real zombie wasn’t fast asleep in the trunk next to the cans of spray paint and the empty space where the garbage bag had been.

He watched until the garbage bag disappeared into the water, relieved when it did so. He had been afraid it would float.

For a moment, Major stood there, holding on to the bridge rail. Was this his life? Kidnapping zombies and making it look like they were murdered before he went home and didn’t sleep with the zombie he loved? How had he gotten here?

And would he get away with it? The very real threat to Liv’s safety was never far from his mind. If du Clark hurt her … 

But that was why he was doing this, so Liv would be safe, he reminded himself. He got into the car and drove off, another long way around, taking back roads and narrow neighborhood streets until he was sure no one was following him, until he figured anyone tracking the moves of his car would be bored and not bother to look too closely at his eventual destination.

Pulling up in front of the storage unit he had rented, he left the car’s lights on so he could see what he was doing, and lifted the body out of the trunk, carrying it over his shoulder inside the building. The room was full of mannequins, having been rented previously by a football buddy of Major’s who had tried to start up his own sportswear line and lost his shirt. Major had taken the rental of the storage unit off the guy’s hands on the condition that it stayed in his name, letting his former teammate believe Major was hiding wedding presents that he couldn’t bear to get rid of but couldn’t stand looking at, either. They had parted with the mutual satisfaction of being able to pity the other person for a fool. Always a day-brightener, that feeling.

In the back of the storage unit was a chest freezer, chosen by Major for its sturdiness and size. He lifted the lid and hefted the body into it, on top of the other two. He looked at them for a moment, wondering if they dreamed in their frozen state or if they had no consciousness at all. Not too long ago, he would have given anything to have no consciousness. But now … now he had Liv back again. And if this was the price of keeping her—he would pay it, and gladly.


	32. Keep You Here with Me

Major rolled onto his back with a sigh of satisfaction. Getting creative had been more entertaining—and more satisfying—than he had imagined possible. Of course, it didn’t hurt that Liv was adventurous and up for anything … even more than she had been before, which was saying something. There was a freedom in her now that hadn’t been there when she was human. She was no longer watching the clock obsessively, calculating the minutes until her next shift, determining whether there was time for a Pilates class beforehand. It was easy to forget just how tightly wound she had been, and he vowed to appreciate this new more laid-back Liv for just who she was.

Next to him, Liv giggled, and he couldn’t help laughing with her. “Whoo. That was … pretty good.”

“Yeah.”

“It was almost as good as sex. The difference between a turkey burger and a hamburger.”

“When I was thirteen, I would have killed to do what we just did,” Major told her. He twined his fingers with hers, stroking her pale skin. “You and I are gonna be fine.”

Liv rolled over, tucking one hand under her head as her eyes searched his face, looking for his true feelings. “So you’re okay with it? Because if we’re gonna do this, we have to be totally honest with each other this time around.”

He smiled. “Of course I want to sex you up, girl. You’re very attractive, and I very much have a penis.” Liv smiled, stroking his arm, and took his hand again as he assured her, “But just being with you’s enough. Honestly.” He really couldn’t imagine being without her, ever again. Look at what a mess his life had been, he had been, without her. He wasn’t going back to being that guy. He was going to stay Liv’s Major from now on, whatever it took.

Liv’s smile had faded, though, as she considered the rest of the ramifications. “But being with zombie me is different than being with old me. It’s not just no sex—when I eat someone’s brain, it sets up camp in me. It’s like I’m always Britney, but sometimes I’m ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ Britney and sometimes I’m shaved head smashing car windows Britney.”

Major rolled over to face her. “Real talk?” Liv gave a tiny nod. “I thought both of those Britneys were hot.”

She wasn’t amused.

“I’m kidding,” he said immediately, smiling. Sometimes going for the laugh worked, but other times she needed the real deep down truth. That, at least, hadn’t changed. “I know this is serious. But I just want you to know that I can hang with whatever you throw at me.”

Liv smiled, a wide, genuine smile, and leaned in to kiss him. She pulled back, anxiously. “You’re sure.”

“Positive.” Major pulled her on top of him, kissing her again. “Zombie Liv is worth putting up with a little crazy for. I’d rather be here with you than bonking anyone else in wild monkey sex.” He thought guiltily of Rita, and pushed the image away. No comparison. Forget turkey burgers and hamburgers—even apples and oranges were too close.

“Ew. And thanks, I think.” Liv closed her eyes and sighed as he found just the right spot on her neck. 

“Besides,” he murmured against her skin, “it wasn’t always a party in there before. What with the schedules and the color-coding …”

“Hey.” She reached for the pillow and smacked him with it while he held up his hands, laughing, to fend off the attack. “You know, you weren’t always available either. Football practice, soccer practice, ‘me time at the gym’ … it’s a wonder you got any work in while you were sculpting the golden bod here.”

Major arched into her touch as her hands wandered down his ribcage. “I didn’t notice you complaining.”

“Well, a girl does appreciate a well-toned set of abs.” She licked the area in question to prove her point. “Besides, what kind of a trophy husband would you have been if I couldn’t show you off to all my sleep-deprived, sex-starved fellow residents?”

“Good point. Now all you have to show me off to is Ravi.”

“And don’t think he doesn’t appreciate the show. Or envy it. One or the other.” Liv shifted herself intimately against him, erotic even through both layers of underwear, and grinned wickedly at his groan. “That doesn’t sound good. Should we do something about that?”

“If it’s not too much trouble.” He moaned again when her hands found him, and for a long while neither of them had enough breath or concentration to do any more talking.


	33. You Decide What's Good

Major entered the kitchen to the sound of the blender, as Peyton made a smoothie. It was kind of like old times having her always around, and Liv in and out of his bed—and kind of like new times, too, with Ravi here. He liked it. He liked it a lot.

As Peyton shut down the blender, Ravi smiled at her in a “just-been-bested” kind of way, the two of them clearly in the middle of a conversation. “You’re the worst.”

Looking between the two of them, Major asked, “I miss something?”

“Just Peyton, showing no mercy to my neurosis about womankind.”

“Oh, okay, let’s get it all out in the open, manthing.” Peyton gestured with her empty glass, the full blender in the other hand. Major watched it with some trepidation. He’d seen what Peyton could do once she got into an animated conversation, and he didn’t relish trying to squeegee smoothie off the wood floor. Then Peyton carried war into his camp. “What about Liv?”

“Huh?” Major looked up, not having anticipated this line of questioning. 

“She’s not glomming onto you, is she? Not ‘cramping your style’? Not being too needy?” The words were aimed at Ravi, but they didn’t describe Liv, regardless.

“No. It’s all good.” It sounded inadequate, so he added, “Real good,” then cringed, because that sounded like protesting too much. They were happy. So happy. Except for the lack of sex, and Liv’s mood swings, and Vaughn du Clark … Super happy. Better than not being together, so none of the rest of it mattered … or so he told himself.

Peyton stared at him, waiting.

And out it came. Here, where everyone knew about the special circumstances, here he could explain how hard it was, how he worried sometimes about whether they could keep this up. Right? “I mean … today she left me a voice mail about how drowning would be a beautiful way to die … but otherwise—you know—same old Liv.”

Peyton took a gulp of smoothie and Ravi winced, looking down at his hands. They knew what it was like. They lived with it. So did Liv, and it wasn’t as though she liked it, or chose it, and he was the one who had sent her to the damn boat party, and this was what life was now, so he might as well just get over it, shouldn’t he?

“Uh, yeah,” Ravi said into the silence. “She’s rolling hard on a death-obsessed magician. It’ll pass. She just needs to eat someone else’s brain.”

It was still startling to Major how calmly Ravi took all this. Sure, he had been the first to know about Liv’s new normal, and he understood it better than anyone else, but to hear him talk about eating brains as if it was everyday stuff … Major wasn’t sure he was ever going to get there.

“Is that all?” he asked, pointedly.

“Mm-hm.”

“Right.” He should let this go, just be okay with it all and be the Major Liv needed him to be. But here in this kitchen, where everyone knew, here he could ask, right? Here he could talk about it. “So, uh, question? Since the two of you have … really experienced Zombie Liv firsthand: How extreme can her personality swings get?” He thought he had seen some stuff in the past few weeks, but he wanted to know if it got worse. Actually, he didn’t want to know—but he needed to.

Peyton made a considering face, but didn’t answer.

Ravi said, “She can be a bit mercurial. But most of the time I enjoy the variety. Of course, I don’t have to date her.”

“There was the one time when her eyes turned red and she killed someone, but I’m thinkin’ that was probably a one-off,” Peyton offered. Ravi nodded over his coffee.

So this was what it had come to. From saving lives in surgery to taking them in her kitchen, and everyone else seemed able to accept it calmly. Of course, Peyton had left town for months, Major reminded himself. She’d had time to think, to consider, to come to terms.

“A one-off,” he repeated.

Ravi nodded again, but his face was a bit twisted, as though he didn’t entirely believe it was a one-off. Maybe he knew about other incidents. Maybe Major should ask about them. 

Maybe Major didn’t want to know.

“That’s good,” he said, instead of asking. 

Peyton put her glass down, and reached for his hand. “Hey. You’ll get through this. She’s still Liv, just … with hella PMS. All the time.”

“Every man’s dream.”

“It’s not forever,” Ravi told him. “I am going to find a cure. I won’t let her go on like this forever. I promise you that.”

“I know you won’t. I’m … very glad she stumbled into you.”

“Me, too,” Peyton said softly. “When I think of what her life was like after that boat party, and then there you were and you understood, and you helped her, and let her know she wasn’t alone … Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” Ravi cleared his throat, uncomfortable with sincerity. “I … Not only is she my friend, she’s a fascinating test subject.”

“Just what every guy wants to hear his roommate say about his girlfriend. Seriously, do I have to check your room for saws?”

“No, but do keep an eye out for rats.”

Both Major and Peyton stared at him in alarm.

“Kidding! Kidding! The rats are all in the morgue.”

“Don’t tell me what they eat.” Peyton shuddered.

“They eat a very carefully balanced diet, thank you very much, none of it brains. Well … there was the time New Hope got out of her cage and ate all her fellow subjects, but …”

“One-off?” Major asked.

“One-off.”

“Right.”

Ravi got to his feet, carrying his coffee cup to the sink. “Look, Major, hang in there.”

“I will. She’s … she’s worth it.”

“Damn right she is,” Peyton echoed.

“Thanks, guys.” Major wasn’t sure he felt better—but he wasn’t alone, and that counted for a lot.


	34. Here As I Am

Liv opened the door to Major’s knock, looking somber. “Good evening.”

“’Good evening’? I thought that was a vampire thing, not a zombie thing.” Major carried his takeout bags into the apartment, frowning. “Hey, if zombies are a thing, then does that mean vampires and werewolves are on the table, too? Because I don’t want to have to look over my shoulder every full moon waiting to see if Ravi grows a lot more facial hair.”

“Creatures of the night are all around us, as are the shades of the departed.”

“Lucky us. Hey, you want a quesadilla?”

Liv wandered toward the living room, taking a seat on the couch and studying the roses Major had brought her a few days ago, gazing intently at one that was drooping. “This flower had color and good bloom once. And yet death, blind to the beauty of all living things, even one as vibrant as this, has swept over it, wrenching it closer to the ground, until ....” She reached out and touched the curling petals, plucking one. “It breaks.”

Major frowned, wondering if he should engage with her depressive state, or simply carry on and hope she could pull herself out. Not that he blamed her—if he were a zombie, he’d likely be a little obsessed with death, too—but it didn’t seem like a healthy state of mind. He decided to carry on. “So is that a yes, you want a quesadilla? Or no?”

“Sorry. I’m good. It’s this brain I’m on—it can get pretty dark.”

“Hey, no. Listen, we promised we were going to be honest with each other, and, uh, I want to know what’s going on in that beautiful undead head of yours.” Unsaid was that he wished he could hear more of what Liv thought and less of what the brain of the day thought. It wasn’t her fault, he reminded himself. Damn boat party.

“Well, you know those missing rich people?”

Oh. Maybe he would rather hear more from the death-is-beautiful brain. “Yeah.”

“They’re zombies.”

Hell. How did she know that? If she knew that, who else did? Not the police, or there would be a public panic about the existence of real zombies in the world. He left the quesadillas, no longer feeling particularly hungry, as Liv continued.

“Someone is going around the city, taking out zombies.” She paused. “I could be next.”

That was the last thing he wanted. He was doing this to keep her safe, after all—he didn’t want her afraid of some random zombie hunter. He sank down on the couch next to her, putting his hand over hers. “I promise that’s not going to happen to you.” 

Liv smiled, not buying it. “That’s not something you can promise.”

He should tell her, he thought. All about Vaughn du Clark, and the zombies, and his situation—but if he told her, she would go off after du Clark, and she would get herself hurt. Or worse. He had just gotten her back, he wasn’t going to risk losing her again.

“I can if I’m with you.”

“You can’t be with me all the time, Major. Neither can Ravi. I can’t be constantly with someone, not and do my job or live my life.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to live in fear.”

“Maybe … you could fight this person off if he came for you. You’re strong. Zombie strong, right?”

“So were the others.”

“Yeah, but they were rich. They could have been weak, unprepared, not used to fighting their own battles. Not like you.” He shook her hand affectionately. “You’re very tough. And scary.”

She looked at him, her eyes wide and worried. “Are you scared of me, Major? Really. I want to know.”

He considered that, taking his time, wanting to give her an honest answer. “No. I’m really not. Maybe I should be, I don’t know, but … you’re Liv. My Liv. I know you would never hurt me.” 

“No. I never would.” She shifted so she was in his lap, tucking her head into his shoulder. They both forgot about the time when she had hurt him badly, breaking his heart, because that wasn’t ever going to happen again. They were together now, and nothing was going to tear them apart—not even the forces of the undead, Major thought fiercely, holding her close.

But then, a couple of nights later, he came home to find her kneeling in his living room, surrounded by candles and draped in black lace, communing with a ouija board. 

It was too much. He had had enough of this death-brain, of Liv’s obsession with darkness. Things were dark enough without embracing it. They were supposed to be looking forward; they were supposed to be happy to be back together and optimistic for a better life without death and zombieism someday. And here she was trying to talk to spirits. He couldn’t deal with it. Not tonight.

Tomorrow he hoped there would be a new brain—or did he? What if it was worse? Clingy, or bigoted, or mentally disturbed in a way Liv wasn’t ready to manage? He just wanted Liv, the real Liv, all the time. And even though he knew it wasn’t her fault, and he knew she fought it as well as she could … he couldn’t help resenting it.

For the first time since they had been reunited, he went to bed discontented, worried, and not entirely sure being back with Liv was what he wanted after all.


	35. Somebody Here that I Can't See

Major was surfing Amazon on his phone, waiting for Liv to come to bed, completely content for once. He had Liv, he felt good, no pesky side effects from his dalliance with the Utopium, and no one at Max Rager seemed to have caught on to what was happening to the zombies from the list. Life was about as good as it could get.

Liv came in from the bathroom and without looking up, he said, “Hey, would it be weird if I got Minor a tiny Seahawks jersey and on the back it said ‘Ruff L. Wilson’?” He grinned at the idea.

He was taken aback when her response was to brandish a bottle of shampoo at him and demand to know who the bitch was who was using his shower.

“Uh …”

She didn’t even give him a moment to collect his thoughts. “Or did you suddenly switch to Sinful Diva shampoo? 'For the shine that gets him to notice you'?” He couldn’t tell if she was offended by the presence on the bottle or the vaguely sexist ad slogan or both.

Major squinted at the bottle. “Oh. That’s Ravi’s. Smell it.”

She did, still frowning, even as she admitted that it did smell like Ravi. 

“You okay?”

Liv put the bottle down on the nightstand and shifted the covers to get into bed. “I’m gonna plead temporary insanity.”

“Hey, a little jealousy makes a guy feel wanted.” He went back to browsing for cute dog outfits. His phone beeped while he was scrolling, and Liv glanced sharply at it.

“Little late for a text, isn’t it?”

He looked at her, shutting down the browser. “But let’s not overplay it.” She’d been possessive in the past, but never suspicious. Possessive could be hot. Suspicious was just annoying.

Liv met his eyes, then looked back at the phone, still appearing distressed. He could see her working to calm herself down. “Right. Sorry. Brain.”

“Yeah, I figured.” Major left it at that, not wanting to say something he might regret later in his increasing irritation with the way the brains affected their lives. “Come here.” He switched off the light and snuggled down under the covers, pulling Liv close, feeling the way her body slowly relaxed against him. They would get through this, she’d eat another brain in a day or two, and they’d move on, he told himself. But it was a long while before he could get his own body to relax enough to sleep.

She wasn’t in bed when he woke up, and he assumed she must have had to go in to work early. He wandered down the hall toward the bathroom, hearing a faint sniffing sound as he got close, recognizing the voice as not Ravi's through his early morning fog seconds before he saw her. “Liv?”

Liv was sitting on the toilet seat, fully dressed, with his phone in her hands, distressed almost to the point of tears. “Who’s Rita?” she demanded.

The fog dissipated fast, leaving him all too clear on the situation. “You went through my phone?”

“’Yesterday was so hot. Hope there were no security cameras in that elevator’,” she read from the old texts, and Major wished to hell he had deleted them. He also wished Liv had never eaten these damned brains, because he was so angry with her right now he wasn’t sure he could stay in the same room with her.

“I can’t believe that you—“

“Here’s another good one,” she went on, ignoring him entirely. “’Three rounds in one night! That’s my kind of triathlon.’”

Major wasn’t about to dignify this situation by explaining. “Give me back my phone.”

“’You up?’ She sent that one the night that you showed up at my place begging for help. I’m so glad I could be there for you when your booty call fell through. Or did you come to my place after?”

“That’s not what happened.” Couldn’t she see that he had come to her because she was the only one he wanted to be with? Not on these brains she couldn’t. On these brains she was barely Liv. Who the hell was he in a relationship with, anyway?

“Oh? Well, should we give Rita a call? Put her on speaker, maybe get some confirmation?”

“No, don’t—don’t do that.” He could only imagine how that conversation would go. What would Rita tell Liv about his other activities? Their sexcapades were hardly the worst secret she could reveal.

“Answer the question! Who’s Rita?” Liv was desperate now, really rolling on her jealousy high, and he hated this whole situation more than he could possibly have said.

“She was meaningless! All right? She—she threw herself at me during a real low point. It ended the moment that we got back together.”

Major could see in Liv’s face that she wanted to believe him, that she was trying to. 

“I don’t deserve this,” he reminded her.

And then she was back, the real Liv, stricken and guilty and ashamed of herself. As she damn well should be, Major thought.

“It’s this brain I’m on,” she said softly. “Apparently the woman was an unhinged stalker. I didn’t know when I ate it.”

He wanted to forgive her—he was trying to understand what it must be like to have your mind and your whole self taken over by someone else’s personality traits and how terrifying and disturbing that must be. But it was hard not to take this personally, this betrayal of his trust.

“Going through my phone was not okay.”

“It won’t happen again.” She nodded, trying to convince herself as much as him. “I can fight this.” She got to her feet, taking a deep shaky breath as she tried to pull herself back together. “I’m already late for work.”

She handed him his phone, kissed him quickly, and went by, leaving him with the distinct impression that she was nowhere near as in control as she was trying to pretend. Were some brains stronger than others? Did some tap into unexpected hidden places in her own brain? He wished he understood better how it worked.

Then it struck him—if she was going through his phone, how much longer before she went through his stuff? Before she found the things he carried around to take out the zombies with?

He hurried into his room, unzipped his gym bag, and dug out the trank gun and the list, opening the closet door and keying in the code to the safe he had put in there when he was hunting Julian. He had only just locked it again when he heard her voice behind him. 

“You have a safe in your closet?”

Major stood up, refusing to answer the question. “You’re back.”

“I didn’t like how we left things, so I came back to apologize. When did you get the safe?”

“I got it when the giant zombie broke into my place last year.”

“Open it. Please,” she added, as a clear afterthought.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because you just promised you’d fight the brain.” That caught her. She blinked and swallowed and looked away. “Prove you meant it.”

She wasn’t in control, he could see that, but she was trying. Would it be enough? 

“I meant it,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

And then she really was gone, off to work, and Major breathed a sigh of relief and annoyance. He wanted Liv, he did, but could he handle all the other people who took up short-term residence inside her? He wasn’t sure. What he did know was that the safe wouldn’t be safe for long.

Once he was sure Liv had left the house on her way to work, he unlocked the safe again and took out the list and the trank gun, putting them back in his gym bag for the moment. He’d hide them at the back of the closet in the box of leftover wedding invitations that he had never gotten around to throwing out. He looked at the other occupant of the safe, a small rectangular box, and decided to leave it there. If she demanded to see the safe again, she could see what he kept in there, and maybe it would remind her who she was, and who he was.


End file.
